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I'HOMAH PA INF. , 



lon^/orr /;?,/. Fr//, /y>^.j /y IV. SAv,r/, J\("l; CAar/e.,- Str^.-f-Md^l'JfM/if 



THE 



LIFE 



or 



THOMAS PAINE, 



AUTHOR OF 



COMMON SENSE, RIGHTS OF MAN, AGE OF REASON' 
LETTER TO THE ADDRESSERS, &c. &c. 



BY 

THOMAS CLIO RICKMAN. 



To counteract foul slander^s lies, 
And vindicate the good, and wise. 

Has been my only aim ; 
If skilless I've performed my part. 
The error lies not with my heart, 

My HEAD 's alone to blame. 



Xontion 




printed and PUBLISHED BY THOMAS CLIO RICKMAN, 

UPPER MART-LE-BONE STREET; 

AND TO BE HAD OF ALL BOOKSELLERS. 

1819. 



DEDICATION. 



Celestial Truth! the guider of his pen 

Whose Life I sketch, to thi^e devoted solely 

1 dedicate my work ; for who 'mongst men 
Merits pre-eminence so pure, and holy I 

O Thou ! whose light enlarges every day. 
May on the world thy full effulgence beam ; 

So PUBLIC RECTITUDE shall make its way, 
So PRIVATE VIRTUE be no idle dream. 

Order and beauty follow in thy train. 
And taste and happiness await on thee ; 

Lift up thy voice aloud and all the vain. 
And all the wrong and all the false shall flee. 

Celestial Truth! thy blessings I implore. 
Thy bright reward I seek, and seek no more. 



PREFACM^ 



The two following letters are so explanatory 
of the reasons why the publication of the life 
of Mr. Paine has been so long delayed, and are 
so well calculated to excite the candor of the 
reader towards the work, that no apology is 
offered for making them a part of the preface, 

" To the Editor of the Universal Magaiine. 

[Norember, 1811.] 
" ON MR. CLIO RICKMAN's 

" supposed undertaking of the life of 
'*' thomas paine. 
"Sir, 

" The public has been, within the 
^' last year or two, led to expect a Life of the 
" celebrated Thomas^ Paine, from the pen of 
" Mr. Clio Rickman, well known, on various 



VI 



*^ accounts, to be more thoroughly quahfied 
** for that task than any other person in this 
*^ country. 

" This information, however, I repeat as I 

" received it, uncertain whether it came abroad 

" in any authenticated shape; and can only 

*' add, that no doubt need be entertained of 

" sufficient attention from the public in times 

" like the present, to a well-written life of that 

'^ extraordinary character, whose principles and 

" precepts are at this moment in full operation 

* 

" over the largest and richest portion of the 
" habitable globe, and which in regular process 
** of time may, from the efficacious influence 
" of the glorious principles of freedom, become 
" the grand theatre of civilization. 

*' I have often desired to make a commu- 
** nication of this kind to your Magazine, 
" but am particularly impelled thereto at this 
^^ moment, from observing in some periodical 
" publications devoted to political and religious 
" bigotry, a sample of their usual sophistical 
^^ accounts of the last moments of men who 



VII 

^^ have been in life eminent for the independ- 
^* ence and freedom of their opinions ; but the 
'' whole that the bigot to whom I allude has 
" been able to effect in the ease of Mr. Paine, 
" amounts to an acknowledgment that the phi- 
" losopher died stedfast to those opinions of 
" religion in which he had lived ; and the dis- 
'^ appointment is plain enough to be seeti, that 
" similar forgeries could not, with any prospect 
" of success, be circulated concerning Paine's 
" tergiversation and death - bed conversion, 
^^ which were so greedily swallowed for a 
" length of time by the gulls of fanaticism 
" respecting Voltaire, D'Alembert, and others, 
" until the Monthly Review, in the real spirit 
" of philosophy, dispelled the imposition. 

" The late Life of Thomas Paine by Cheet- 
" ham, of New York, gave rise to the above 
" Magazine article. Cheetham humph ! Now 
" should it not rather be spelled Cheat *em, 
" as applicable to every reader of that farrago 
^* of imposition and malignity, miscalled the 
''^ Life of Paine. 



VIII 

'* Probably it may be but a travelling name 
^' in order to set another book a-travelling, for 
" the purpose of scandalizing and maligning 
" the reputation of a defunct public man, in- 
^^ stead of the far more difficult task of con- 
** futing his principles. 

** Nothing can be more in course than this 
" conjecture, authorised indeed by the fol- 
*' lowing fact, with which I believe the public 
" is, to this day, unacquainted; namely, that 
** Mr. Chalmers publicly at a dinner acknow-- 
*^ ledged himself the author of that very silly 
*' and insipid catchpenny, formerly sent abroad 
" under the misnomer of a ' Life of Thomas 
" Paine, by F. Oldys, of America.' 

** The chief \it\v of this application is 
** to ascertain whether or not Mr. Rickman 
*' really intends to undertake the work in 
" question. 

'' I am. Sir, ^c. Sec. 

" POLITICUS," 



IX 



Universal Magazine, December 1811. 



'^ MR. CLIO RICKMAN's REPLY TO POLITICUS. 



" Sir, 

" If you had done me the favour of 
" a call, I would readily have satisfied all youj 
" enquiries about the Life of Mr. Paine, 

" It is true I had the memoirs of that truly 

" wise and good man in a great state of for- 

" wardness about a year ago; but a series of 

" the most severe and dreadful family distresses 

" since that time have rendered me incapable of 

" completing them. 

• 
" Tho an entire stranger to me (for I 

** have not the least idea from whom the letter 

" I am replying to came), I feel obliged to you 

" for the liberal opinion therein expressed of 

" me and of my fitness for the work. 

'' I have taken great pains that the life of 
** my friend should be given to the world as 



" the subject mcilts ; and a few weeks, when- 
" ever I can sit down to it, will complete it. 

" Unhappily, Chectham is the real name 
** of a real apostate. He lived, when Mr. 
•* Paine was my inmate in 1792, at Man- 
*' Chester, and was a violent and furious ido- 
" later of his. 

" That Mr. Paine died in the full conviction 
*^ of the truth of the principles he held when 
" living I shall fully prove, and should have 
** answered the contemptible trash about his 
" death, so industriously circulated, but that 
** the whole account exhibited on the face of 
''it fanatical fraud ; and it was pushed for- 
" ward in a mode and manner so ridiculous and 
" glaringly absurd, as to carry with it its own 
*' antidote. 

" Such Christians Would be much better 
" employed in mending their own lives, and 
*' shewing in them an example of good inan- 
'^ ncrs and morals, than in calumniating the 



XI 



" characters and in detailing silly stories of the 
" deaths of those deists who have infinitely 
** outstripped them, in their journey thro 
" life, in every talent and virtue, and in dif- 
" fusing information and happiness among 
" their fellow men. 

" I again beg the favour of a call, as the 
" circumstances attached to the query of your's, 
" and the delays and hindrances, which are of 
" a family and distressing nature, to the pub-* 
^ lication of Mr. Paine's life, are better adapted 
** for private than public discussion. 

" I am, Sir, your obedient Servant, 

" Clio Rickman." 



It may not be necessary for me to premise 
any thing further than to say, that I affect not 
to rank with literary men, nor, as they rise, 
do I wish it ; that authorship ^ is neither my 



* See Preface to my " Poetical Scraps," 2 vols, where 
this subject is further enlarged on." 



XII 



profession uor pursuit ; and that, except in aH 
undeviating attention to truth, and a better 
acquaintance with Mr. Paine and his hfe than 
any other man, I am perhaps the most unfit to 
arrange it for the pubHc eye. 

What I have hitherto written and published 
has arisen out of the moment, has been com- 
posed on the spur of the occasion, inspired by 
the scenery and circumstances around me, and 
produced abroad and at home, amid innu-^ 
nierable vicissitudes, the hurry of travel, busi- 
ness, pleasure, and during a life singularly 
active, eventful and chequered. 

Latterly too that life has been begloomed 
by a train of ills which have trodden on each 
other's heel, and which, added to the loss of 
my inspirer, my guide, my genius, and my 
muse; of her, the most highly qualified and 
best able to assist me, have rendered the work 
peculiarly irksome and oppressive. 

In the year 1802, on my journey from 
France, I had the misfortune to lose my desk 



XUl 



of papers; — a loss I have nerer lamented more 
than on the present occasion. Among these 
were Mr. Paine's letters to me, particularly 
those from France in the most interesting years 
to Europe, 1792, 1793. Not a scrap of these, 
together with some of his poetry, could I ever 
recover.— By this misfortune the reader will 
lose much entertaining and valuable matter. 



1819. 

These memoirs have remained untouched 
from 1811 till now, and have not received any 
addition of biographical matter since. They 
were written by that part of my family who 
were at hand, as I dictated them; by those 
loved beings of whom death has deprived me, 
and from whom other se\^ere ills have separated 
me. The manuscript, on these and many other 
accounts, awakens " busy meddling memory," 
and tortures me with painful remembrances ; 
and save that it is a duty I owe to the public 
and to the memory and character of a valued 
friend, I should not have set about its arrange- 
ment. 



XIV 



^fy heart is not in it. There arc literary 
productions, which like some children, the 
disagreeable to every body else, are still fa- 
vorites with the parent: this offspring of 
mine is not of this sort, it hath no such 
affection. 

Thus surrounded, and every way broken 
in upon by the most painful and harrassing 
circumstances, I claim the reader's candour ; 
and I now literally force myself to the pub- 
lication of Mr. Paine's Life, lest it should again 
be improperly done, or not be done at all, and 
the knowledge of so great and good a man 
be thereby lost to the world. 



The engraving of Mr. Paine, by Mr. Sharp, 
prefixt to this work is the only true likeness 
of him ; it is from his portrait by Romney, 
and is perhaps the greatest likeness ever taken 
by any painter : to that eminent artist I intro- 
duced him in 1792, and it was by my earnest 
persuasion that he sat to him.*' 



* The large proofs of Mr. Paine sell at one guinea, 
and the large prints at half-a-guinea, to be had of the 



XV 



Mr. Paine in his person was about five feet^ 
ten inches high; and rather athletic; he was 
Jbroad shouldered, and latterly stooped a little. 

His eye, of which the painter could not con- 
vey the exquisite meaning, was full, brilliant, 
and singularly piercing ; it had in it the " musie 
of fire." In his dress and person he was gene- 
rally very cleanly, and wore his hair cued, 
with side curls, and powdered, so that he 
looked altogether like a gentleman of the old' 
French school. 

His manners were easy and gracious; his 
Jcnowledge was universal and boundless ; in 
private company and among friends his con- 
versation had every fascination that anecdote, 
novelty and truth could give it. In mixt 
company and among strangers he said little, 
iand was no public speaker. 

Thus much is said of him in general, and 
in this place, that the reader may the better 
bear us company in his Life. 



publisher. The small ones, proofs at three and sixpence ; 
fii^d prints, at two and sixpence. 



^^7^i aejtn^^J^^i^uy^. 



it, * * 



n, ^ # # # * 



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^7Z^. 



LIFE OF THOMAS PAINE. 



The following memoirs of Mr. Paine, if 
they have no other merit, at least have that 
of being true. 

Europe and America have for years been 
in possession. of his works : these form the most 
important part of his life, and these are publicly 
sold and generally read ; nor will the spirit of 
enquiry and sound reasoning, which the pub- 
lication of them is so well calculated to pro- 
mote, be long confined to any part of the world ; 
for, to use his own words, " An army of prin- 
" ciples will penetrate where an army of sol- 
*' diers cannot. It will succeed where diplo- 
" matic managem^ent would fail. It is neither 
" the Pthine, the Channel, nor the Ocean, that 
" can arrest its progress. It will march on the 
" horizon of the world, and it will conquer." 

B 



*' What manner of man" Mr. Paine was, 
his works will best exhibit, and from these his 
public, and much of his private character will 
be best ascertained. But, as solicitude about 
the life of a great man and an extraordinary 
writer is common to all, it is here attempted 
to be ^'ratified. 



t> 



The Lit'b of Mr. Paine by Francis Oldys* 
was written seventeen years before Mr. Paine's 
death ; and was, in fact, drawn up by a 
person employed by a certain lord, and who 
was to have five hundred pounds for the 
job, if he calumniated and belied him to his 
lordship's and the ministry's satisfaction. 

A continuation of this Life, printed at Phi- 
ladelphia in 1796, is in the same strain as the 
above, and equally contemptible. 



• " The Life of Thomas Pain, the Author of Rights of 
'* Man, with a Defence of his Writings, by Francis Oldys, 
" A.M. of the University of Pennsylvania: — Dublin 
" printed.'' This silly and contemptible book against Mr. 
Paine and his writings, which was calculated every way to iil^ 
jure liira and them, tells a liilsehood in the title page, to secure 
its sale, by inserting in it, " with a Defence of his Writings." 



A most vile and scandalous memoir of him, 
with the name of William Cobbett as the 
author, though we hope he was not so, appeared 
in London about the year 1795 with this motto: 

" A life that 's one continued scene 
" Of all that's infamous and mean/* 

Mr. James Cheetham's Life of Mr. Paine, 
published at New York after Mr. Paine's death 
in 1809, is a farrago of still more silly, trifling, 
false, and malicious matter. It is an outrageous 
attack upon him which bears, upon the face 
of it, idle gossiping, and gross misrepresenta- 
tion. 

The critique on this Life, in the British Re- 
view for June 1811, consists of more corrupt 
trash about Mr. Paine than even Cheetham's 
book, and is in its style inflated and bombastip 
to a laughable excess. Whence this came, and 
for what purposes published, the candid will 
readily discern, and cannot but lament the too 
frequent abuse, both by the tongue and by the 
pen, of characters entirely unknown to those 

b2 



who libel them, and by whom, if they were 
known, they would be approved and esteemed. 

Indeed the whole of these works arc so ridi- 
culously overstrained in their abuse that they 
carry their own antidote with them. 

The Life by Cheetham is so palpably writ- 
ten to distort, disfigure, mislead, and vilify, 
and does this so bunglingly, that it defeats its 
own purposes, and becomes entertaining from 
the excess of its laboured and studied defa- 
mation. 

It is indeed '' Guilt's blunder," and subverts 
all it was intended to accomplish. It is filled 
with long details of uninteresting American 
matter, bickering letters of obscure individuals, 
gossiping stories of vulgar fanatics, prejudiced 
politrcal cant, and weak observations on theo- 
logy. 

It may be supposed, from my long and affec- 
tionate intercourse witii Mr. Paine, that these 



memoirs will have an opposite bias, and pour- 
tray too flattering and exalted a character of him. 

To this I reply, that I am not disposed to 
advocate the errors and irregularities of any 
man, however intimate with him, to suffer the 
partialities of friendship to prevent the due 
appreciation of character, or induce me to dis- 
regard the hallowed dictates of truth. 

Mr. Paine was one of those men who, 

Wise by some centuries before the croud. 
Must by their novel systems, tho correct. 

Of course offend the wicked, weak, and proud. 
Must meet with hatred, calumny, neglect. 

In his retirement to America, towards the 
close of his life, Mr. Paine was particularly 
unfortunate; for, as the author of the "Age of 
Reason," he could not have gone to so unfavor- 
able a quarter of the world. A country, abound- 
ing in fanatics, could not be a proper one for 
him whose mind was bold, enquiring, liberal, 
and soaring, free from prejudice, and who from 
principle was a deist. 



6 

Of all wrath, fanatical wrath is the most 
intense ; nor can it be matter of surprise that 
Mr. Paine received from great numbers in Ame-? 
rica an unwelcome reception, and was treated 
with neglect and iliiberality. 

It is true on his return to that country iii 
1802, he received great attention from many 
of those who remembered the mighty intluence 
of his Vvaitings in the gloomy period of the 
Revolution ; and from others who had since em- 
braced his principles ; but these attentions were 
not, by many, long continued. 

Thousands, who had formerly looked up to 
Mr. Paine as the principal founder of the Re- 
public, had imbibed a strong dislike to him on 
account of his religious principles ; and thou- 
sands more, who were opposed to his political 
principles, seized hold of the mean and dastardly 
expedient of attacking those principles thro 
the religious feelings and prejudices of the 
people. The vilest calumnies w^ere constantly 
yented against him in the public papers, and 



the weak minded were afraid to encounter the 
popular prejudice. 

The letter he wrote to General Washington 
also estranged him from many of his old friends, 
and has been to his adversaries a fruitful theme 
of virulent accusation, and a foundation on 
which to erect a charge of ingratitude and in- 
temperance. It must certainly be confessed 
that his naturally warm feelings, which could 
ill brook any slight, particularly where he was 
conscious^ he so little deserved it, appear to 
have led him to form a somewhat precipitate 
judgment of the conduct of the American presi- 
dent, w^ith regard to his (Mr. Paine's) impri- 
sonment in France, and to attribute to design 
and wilful neglect what was probably only the 
result of inattention or perhaps misinformation ; 
and under the influence of this incorrect im- 
pression he seems to have indulged, rather too 
hastily, suspicions of Washington's political 
conduct with respect to England. But surely 
some little allowance should be made for the 
circumstances under which he wrote; just 



8 



escaped from the horrors of a prison where he 
had been for several months confined under 
the sanguinary reign of Robespierre, when 
death strode incessantly through its cells, and 
the guillotine floated in the blood of its wretch- 
ed inhabitants ; and if, with the recollection of 
these scenes of terror fresh in his memory, and 
impressed with the idea that it was by Washing- 
ton's neglect that his life had been thus endan- 
gered, he may have been betrayed into a style 
of severity which was perhaps not quite war- 
ranted, we can only lament, without attaching 
blame to either, that any thing jarring should 
have occurred between two men who were both 
staunch supporters of the cause of freedom, and 
thus have given the enemies of liberty occasion 
to triumph because its advocates were not more 
than mortal. 

The dark and troublous 3^ears of the revo- 
lution having past away, and a government 
being firmly established, wealth possessed more 
influence than patriotism; and, a large portion 
of the people consisting of dissenters, fana- 



ticism was more predominant than toleration, 
candour and charity. 

These causes produced the shameful and 
tmgrateful neglect of Mr. Paine in the eve- 
ning of his days; of that Paine Avho by his 
long, faithful, and disinterested services in the 
Revolution, and afterwards by inculcating and 
enforcing correct principles, deserved, above all 
other men, the most kind and unremitting 
attention from, and to be held in the highest 
estimation by, the American people. 

There were indeed a chosen and enlightened 
few, who, like himself *^ bold enough to be 
honest and honest enough to be bold," feeling 
his value, continued to be his friends to his last 
hour. 

Paine was not onp of the great men who 
live amid great events, and forward and share 
their splendour ; he created them ; and, in this 
point of view, he was a very superior character 
to Washington. 



10 



Far be it from me to derogate from the 
value of that great man; but it is presumed 
that he is more justly appreciated in the follow- 
ing epitaph, than in some longer essays towards 
characterizino- him : 

Important periods raark'd thy splendid life. 
With tyrant men and tyrant means at strife; 
Tho ne'er in Europe, yet thy well-earn'd fame 
Throughout all Europe made revered thy name. 
Thus far is tiae, but truth must further tell, 
That lucky hits thy bright career befell ; 
Nor will thy shade this portraiture condemn. 
That great events made thee, and not thou them. 

Mr. Paine having ever in his mind the servi- 
ces he had rendered the United States, of whose 
independence he was the principal author and 
means, it cannot be matter of wonder that he 
was deeply hurt and aifected at not being re- 
cognized and treated by the Americans as he 
deserved, and as his labours for their benefit 
merited. 

Shunned where he ought to have been ca- 
ressed, coldly neglected where he ought to 
have been cherished, thrown into the back 



11 



ground where he ought to have been promi- 
nent, and cruelly treated and calumniated by 
a host of ignorant and canting fanatics, it can- 
not be a subject of burprise, though it certainly 
must of regret, that he sometimes, towards the 
close of life, gave into the too frequent indul- 
gence of drinking, neglected his appearance, 
and retired, mortified and disgusted, from an 
ill-judging, unkind, unjust world, into coarse 
obscurity, and the association of characters in 
inferior life. I 

In this place it is absolutely necessary to 
observe, that during his residence with me in 
London in and about the year 1792, and in the 
course of his life previous to that time, he was 
not in the habit of drinking to excess; he was 
clean in his person, and in his manners polite 
and engaging ; and ten years after this, when 
I was with him in France, he did not drink 
spirits, and wine he took moderately ; he even 
objected to any spirits- being laid in as a part 
of his sea stock, observing to me, that tho 
;^ome times, borne down by public and private 



1^ 



affliction, he had been driven to excesses in 
Paris, the cause and effect would cease toge- 
ther, and that in America he should live as he 
liked, and as he ought to hve. 

That Mr. Paine had his failings is as true 
as that he was a man, and that some of them 
grew on him at a very advanced time of life, 
arising from the circumstances before detailed, 
there can be no doubt : but to magnify these, 
to give him vices he had not, and seek only 
occasions of misrepresenting and vilifying his 
character, without bringing forward the great 
and good traits in it, is cruel, unkind, and 
unjust. 

" Let those who stand take heed lest they 
fall." — They too, when age debilitates the body 
and mind, and unexpected trials and grievances 
assail them, may give into errors that they now 
vauntingly value themselves in not having. 
Singularly blest are they who are correct in 
their conduct; they should be happy and thank- 
ful that they are so ; and instead of calumnia- 



13 



ting and being hard upon, should compas- 
sionate those who are not. 

The throwers of the first stone would indeed 
be few if the condition were complied with on 
which it should be cast. That Mr. Paine in 
his declining years drank more than he should 
have done, and that he was a little tinctured 
with avarice, is in some measure true ; but, to 
these errors of his old age, we ought to oppose 
his being the principal agent in creating the 
government of the American States ; and that 
thro his efforts millions have now the hap- 
piness of sitting at ease under their own vines 
and their own fig trees ; his fair and upright 
conduct thro life, his honest perseverance in 
principles which he might have had immense 
sums for relinquishing, or for being silent 
about, his never writing for money or making 
his works matter of pecuniary advantage to 
himself, but, on the contrary, as will be exem- 
plified in these memoirs, his firmness in resist- 
ing all such emolument and in not listening 
to the voice of the briber. 



14 



Even amidst the violent party abuse of tli€ 
day there were cotemporary writers who knew 
how to appreciate Mr. Paine's talents and prin- 
ciples, and to speak of him as he deserved.* 



* There were also public meetings held, arid addresses 
to him from Nottingham, Norwich, &c. &c. from the Con- 
stitutional Society in London, to which belonged persons of 
great aiSuence and influence, and some of the best informed, 
best intentioned, and most exalted characters. From these 
and from many other bodies of men were published the 
highest testimonies of thanks and approbation of Mr. Paine 
and his political works. These addresses and the resolutions 
of the public meetings may be seen in the papers and hand 
bills of the day. — We subjoin two from Manchester and 
Sheffield. 



" Manchester. — At a Meeting of the Manchester 
Constitutional Society, held this day, it was unanimously 
resolved, 

" That the thanks of this Society are due to Mr. Tho- 
mas Paine, for the pubhcation of " his Second Part of the 
Rights of Man, combining Principle and Practice," — a 
work of the highest importance to every nation under 
heaven ; but particularly to this, as containing excellent and 
practicable plans for an immediate and considerable reduc- 
tion of the public expenditure ; for the prevention of wars ; 
for the extension of our manufactures and commerce ; for 
the education of the young ; for the comfortable support of 
the aged ; for the better maintenance of the poor of every 



15 



" We arc now," says one of these, " to 
' treat of a real great man, a noble of nature, 
■^ one whose mind is enlarged and wholely 
'^ free from prejudice ; one who has most use- 



description ; and finally, for lessening greatly , and witliout 
delay, the enormous load of taxes under which this country 
at present labours. 

" That this Society congratulate their countrymen at 
large on the infiuence which Mr. Paine's publications appear 
to have had, in procuring the repeal of some oppressive 
taxes in the present session of parliament; and they hope 
that this adoption of a small part of Mr. Paine's ideas will be 
foUoxved by the most strenuous exertions to accomplish a complete 
reform in the present inadequate state of the representation of the 
people, and that the other great plans of public benefit, 
which Mr. Paine has so powerfully recommended, will be 
speedily parried into effect. 

" Thomas Walker, President. 
" Mar. 13, 1792. *' Samuel Jackson, Secretary." 

" Sheffield Society for Constitutional Information. 

" This Society, composed chiefly of'the Manufacturers 
of Sheffield, began about four months pgo, a!>d is already 
increased to nearly two thousand Members, and is daily 
increasing; exclusive of the adjacent towns and villages, 
who are forming themselves into similar societies. 

" Considering^ as we do, that the want of knowledge 
and information in the general mass of the people, has 
exposed them to numberless impositions and abuses, the 



16 



*' fully and honourably devoted his pen to 
"support the glorious cause of general liberty 
" and the rights of man. In his reply to Mr. 
" Burke's miserable rhapsody in favour of op- 



exertions of this Society are directed to the acquirement of 
useful knowledge, and to spread the same, as far as our 
endeavours and abilities can extend. 

" We declare that we have derived more true know- 
ledge from the two works of Mr. Thomas Paine, entitled 
Rights of Man, Part the Fint and Second, than from any 
other author on the subject. The practice as well as the 
principle of government is laid down in those works, in a 
manner so clear and irresistibly convincing, that this Society 
do hereby resolve to give their thanks to Mr. Paine for his 
two said publications entitled ' Rights of Man/ Part 1st and 
2d. Also 

" Resolved unanimously. That the thanks of this Society 
be given to Mr. Paine for the affectionate concern he has 
shewn in his second work in behalf of the poor, the infant, 
and the aged ; who, notwithstanding the opulence which 
blesses other parts of the community, are by the grievous 
weight of taxes rendered the miserable victims of poverty 
and wretchedness. 

" Resolved unanimously. That the thanks of this Society 
be given to J. HoRNE Tooke, Esq. for his meritorious 
support of our lawful privileges, as a firm advocate of our 
natural and just rights, the establishment of an equal repre- 
sentation of the people. 

*' Resolved unanimously, That this Society, tli^daining 






if 

^^ pression, popery, and tyranny, he has urged 
" the most lucid arguments, and brought for- 
" ward truths the most convincing. Like a 
" powerful magician he touches with his wand 
" the hills of error and they smoke; the moun- 
" tains of inhumanity and they melt away." 

" Had Thomas Paine, ^' says another most 
enlightened writer in 1795, in reply to Cheet- 
ham, Cobbett, Oldys, &c. " been nothing 



to be considered either of a ministerial or an opposition 
party (names of which we are tired, having been so often 
deceived by both) do ardently recommend it to all their 
fellow citizens, into whose hands these resolutions may 
come, to confer seriously and calmly with each other, on 
the subject alluded to ; and to manifest to the world> that 
the spirit of true liberty is a spirit of order ; and that to 
obtain justice, it is consistent that we be just ourselves. 

" Resolved unanimously. That these Resolutions be 
printedj and that a Copy thereof be transmitted to the 
* Society for Constitutional information in London,' request- 
ing their approbation for twelve of our friends to be entered 
into their Society, for the purpose of establishing a con- 
nexion and a regular communication with that and all other 
similar societies in the kingdom. 

" By order of the Committee, 

" Mar. 14, 1792. " David Martin, Chairman." 



18 



'" superior to a vagabond seaman, a bankrupt 
" stay maker, a discarded exciseman, a porter 
'^ in the streets of Philadelphia, or whatever 
" else the insanity of Grub-street chooses to 
" call him, hundreds of thousands of copies of 
'^ his writing had never announced his name in 
" every village on the globe where the English 
** language is spoken, and very extensively 
" where it is not; nor would the rays of royal 
" indignation have illuminated that character 
" which they cannot scorch." 

The following are the observations of Mr. 
Erskine, now Lord Erskine, when counsel for 
him on the prosecution against him for his 
work ' Rights of Man.' '^ Upon the mat- 
" ter, which I hasten to lay before you, can 
*' you refuse injustice to pronounce, that from 
" his education, from the accidents and habits 
" of his life, from the time and circumstances 
'^ attending it, and from every line and letter 
" of the work itself and all his other writinsrs 
" before and ever since, his conscience and 
" understanding (no matter whether errone- 



I 



19 



" ously or not) were deeply and solemnly im- 
'^ pressed with the matters contained in his 
'* book ; that he addressed it to the reason of 
" the nation at large, and not to the passions of 
" indiv^iduals ; and that in the issue of its influ- 
" ence he contemplated only what appeared 
** to him (though it may not to us) to be the 
" interest and happiness of England, and of the 
*' whole human race? In drawing the one or 
" other of these conclusions, the book stands 
" first in order, and it shall speak for itself. 

" Gentlemen, the whole of it is in evidence 
" before you, the particular parts arranged 
" having only been read by my consent upon 
** the presumption that on retiring from the 
" court you would carefully compare them 
" with the context, and all the parts with 
" the whole viewed together. 

" You cannot indeed do justice without it. 
" The most common letter, even in the ordi- 
" nary course of business, cannot be read in 
" a cause to prove an obligation for twenty 

c2 



20 



'* shillings without the whole being read, that 
^' the writer's meaning may be seen without 
** deception. 



" But in a criminal charge only of four 
^' pages and a half, out of a work containing 
" nearly two hundred, you cannot, with even 
" the appearance of common justice, pronounce 
'' a judgment without the most deliberate and 
'^ cautious comparison. I observe that the 
^' noble and learned judge confirms me in this 
*' observation. But if any given part of a work 
^' be legally explanatory of every other part 
*' of it, the preface, k fortiori, is the most 
" material, because the preface is the author's 
'^ own key to his writing ; it is there that he 
" takes the reader by the hand and introduces 
'' his subject; it is there that the spirit and 
*' intention of the whole is laid before him 
" by way of prologue. A preface is meant by 
'^ the author as a clue to ignorant or careless 
" readers ; the author says by it to every man 
" who chooses to begin where he ought, 
'^ look at my plan, attend to my distinctions, 



21 



^^ mark the purpose, and limitations of the pur- 
" pose, I lay before you. Let them, the ca- 
" lumniators of Thomas Paine, now attend to 
" his preface, where, to leave no excuse for 
^^ ignorance or misrepresentation, he expresses 
'^ himself thus : * I have differed from some 
'^ professional gentlemen on the subject of pro- 
" secutions, and I since find they are falling 
*' into my opinion, which I will here state as 
*' fully but as concisely as I can. I will first 
^' put a case with respect to my law, and then 
** compare it with a government, or with what 
" in England is, or has been called, a consti- 
'' tution.' 

" It would be an act of despotism, or what 
** in England is called arbitrary power, to 
" make a law to prevent investigating the 
" principles, good or bad, on which such a law 
*• or any other is founded. If a law be bad, 
" it is one thing to oppose the practice of it, 
" but it is quite a different thmg to expose its 
" errors, to reason on its defects, and to show 
^^ cause why it should be repealed, or why 



22 



'^ another ought to be substituted in its 
** place. 

^* I have always held it an opinion (making 

" it also my practice) that it is better to obey 

" a bad law, making use at the same time of 

** every argument to show its errors and pro- 

" duce its repeal, than forcibly to violate it; 

" because the precedent of breaking a bad law 

" might weaken the force, and lead to a dis- 

" cretionary violation, of those which are 

" good. 

" The case is the same with principles and 
** forms of a government, or of what are called 
" constitutions, and the parts of which they 
" are composed. 



'^ It is for the good of nations, and not for 
" the emolument or aggrandisement of parti- 
" cular individuals, that government ought to 
" be established, and that mankind are at the 
" expence of supporting it. The defects of 
** every government and constitution, both as 



23 



*' to principle and form, must, on a parity of 
*' reasoning, be as open to discussion as the 
*' defects of a law ; and it is a duty every man 
" owes to society to point them out : When 
" those defects and the means of remedying 
" them are generally seen by a nation, that 
" nation will reform its government or its 
" constitution in the one case, as the govern- 
^' ment repealed or reformed the law in the 
" other." 




Mr. Erskine HBBBBSays, " In that great 
' and calamitou'^liHrrict, the American war, 
'^ Mr. Burke and Mr. Paine fought on the same 
" field of reason together, but with very diife- 
*' rent success. Mr. Burke spoke to a parlia- 
" ment in England such as Sir G. Saville de- 
^* scribes it, that had no ears but for sounds 
" that flattered its corruptions ; Mr. Paine, on 
'* the other hand, spoke to a people, reasoned 
" with them, that they were bound by no sub- 
*' jection to any sovereignty further than their 
" own benefits connected them ; and by these 
" powerful arguments prepared the minds of 



24 



*^ the American people for their glorious, just, 
•* and happy revolution," 

After this he very properly replies to those 
silly, heated people, who object to Mr. Paine's 
discussing the subject he so ably handles. 



'* A subject which, if dangerous to be dis- 
■* cussed, he, Mr. Burke, should not have led 
" to the discussion: for-^i^ly it is not to be 
^' endured that any||||j^^BB||n is to publish 
'■ a creed for a whMe^q^^^^^Bj||i| us we are 
" not to think for ourscl^fl^^^^mse his own 
" fetters on the human mind, to dogmatise at 
" discretion, and that no man shall sit down 
*^ to answer him without being guilty of a 
^' libel; I assert, that, if it be a libel to mistake 
" our constitution, to support it by means that 
" tend to destroy it, and to choose the most 
^' dangerous season for the interference, Mr. 
■* Burke is that libeller, but not therefore the 
" object of a criminal prosecution ; for whilst 
^^ I am defending the motives of one man I 
" have neither right nor disposition to crimi- 



25 



^^ nate the motives of others. All I contend for 
'^ is a fact that cannot be controverted, viz, 
" that this officious interference was the origin 
'' of Mr. Paine's book. I put my cause upon 
*^ its being the origin of it, the avowed origin 
" of it, as will abundantly appear from the 
^^ introduction and preface to both parts, and 
" throughout the whole body of the work ; nay 
** from the work of Mr. Burke himself, to 
'^ which both of them are answers." 

Even Mr. Burl^ wiiting on one of Mr. 
Paine's works, * -Common Sense,' says, " that ce- 
^' lebrated pamphlet, which prepared the minds 
" of the people for independence," 

The following extract is from Mrs. Charlotte 
Smith's ' Desmond,' a novel, for matter and 
manner, equalled by few, and which for the 
excellent sentiments it inculcates is worthy the 
reader's attention. 

" In reading the book you sent me, which 
^* I have yet had only time to do superficially, 



26 



" I am forcibly struck by truths tliat either 
'* were not seen before, or were by me, who 
" did not wish to acknowledge them, carefully 
" repressed; they sometimes are bluntly deli- 
" vered, but it is often impossible to refuse 
" immediate assent to those which appear the 
** boldest, impossible to deny that many others 
" have been acceded to, when they were spoken 
*' by men to whose authority we have paid 
" a kind of prescriptive obedience, tho they 
" now have called forth such clamour and abuse 
" against the author of the * Rights of Man.' 
" My other letters from England are filled with 
" accounts of the rage and indignation which 
" this publication has excited ; I pique myself, 
** however, on having, in my former letter, cited 
" against Burke, a sentence of Locke which 
" contradicts, as forcibly as Paine has contra-' 
" dieted, one of his most absurd positions. I 
" know that, where sound argument fails, abu- 
" sive declamation is always substituted, and 
" that it often silences where it cannot con- 
" vince. I know too that where the politics 
*' are obnoxious, recourse is always had to per- 



27 



" sonal detraction ; therefore wonder not that, 
" on your side of the water, those who are 
" averse to the pohtics of Paine will declaim 
*' instead of arguing, and those who feel the 
** force of his abilities will vilify his private 
** life, as if that was any thing to the purpose. 
*^ I do however wonder that these angry anta- 
** gonists do not recollect that the clamour 
'* they raise serves only to prove their fears, 
*' and that if the writings of this man are, as 
^' they would represent, destitute of truth and 
" sound argument, they must be quickly con- 
" signed to contempt and oblivion, and could 
^* neither be themselves the subject of alarm, 
^* or render their author an object of investi- 
" gation and abhorrence ; but the truth is, 
*' whatever may be his private life (with which 
*' I cannot understand that the public have 
" any concern) he comes, as a political writer, 
" under the description given of a controvertist 
*' by the acute author to whom Monsieur 
" D'Hauteville has so terrible an aversion : — 
'' ' Was there ever so abominable a fellow? 
He exposes truth so odiously, he sets before 
our eyes the arguments on both sides with 
*^ * horrible impartiality; he is so intolerably 



iC t 

tc c 



28 



*' ' clear and plain, that he enables people who 
*' * have only common sense, to doubt, and 
" * even to judge.' Voltaire,'' 

It would be unjust to omit the testimony of 
so great a man as Mr. Monroe^ in Mr. Paine's 
favour, especially as he knew our author 
thro many years, and was incapable of any 
thing less than a due appreciation of his cha- 
racter. 

" It is necessary for me to tell you how 
" much all your countrymen, I speak of the 
*' great mass of the people, are interested in 
** your welfare; they have not forgotten the 
** history of their own revolution, and the dif- 
'* ficult scenes through which they passed ; nor 
*' do they review its several stages without 
*' reviving in their bosoms a due sensibility 
*' of the merits of those who served them in 
" that great and arduous conflict. The crime 
" of ingratitude has not yet stained, nor I 
** trust ever will stain, our national character. 



'* Elected President of America in 1817. 



29 



" You are considered by them as not only 
" having rendered important services in our 
** own revolution, but as being* on a more 
" extensive scale the friend of human rights, 
" and a distinguished and able advocate in 
" favour of public liberty. To the welfare of 
'' Thomas Paine the Americans are not, nor 
'' can they be, indifferent/' 

But Paine is now dead, the test of time 
must prove him, and the reader will I hope be 
gratified that I add the elegant and very appro- 
propriate language of my brother-in-law, Mr. 
Capel Lofft. 

" I have learnt that on the writings of men 
** the grave is a severe and impartial critic; 
*^ what deserves disesteem will have no long 
" celebrity, but what has truth and social good 
" for its principle, and has been the emanation 
*' of a powerful mind, under the influence of 
" these motives has the germ of immortality ; 
*' whatever of perishable frailty may adhere 
'* to it will soon drop into oblivion. The 
" fleeting forms of error change in every ge- 
" neration; a wrong is ever a confined and 



30 



" a capricious taste. Nothing will generally 
" and permanently please that does not derive 
" itself from an higher origin. It is needless 
" therefore to inveigh against the dead, those 
" especially who have heen poor, and perse- 
*' cuted, and traduced through Hfe. Such, if 
" they merit shame and neglect with posterity, 
** must of course meet it. These are no impo- 
" sing circumstances to create a false homage. 
" But if they have deserved the esteem, the 
" gratitude, the affectionate veneration of suc- 
" ceeding ages, no satire, no mvidious exag- 
*' <rerated selection of their faults will check 
" their career. The licensed cry that marks 
" the commencement of their triumph will be 
" hourly fainter, and its last hollow murmurs 
" will have expired without ever reaching that 
" temple in which their fame, its solemn pro- 
'* gress completed, must reside, while aught of 
" human glory beams on the earth from the 
" awful shrine. If men, in other respects of 
" wisdom and virtue, have so far forgotten 
*' themselves as to aid the cry, those tutelary 
" powers leave at such a moment the side of 
" those whom at other times they have most 
" favoured. They add force to the sacred 



31 



" sound of just praise ; the din of their con- 

*' stant enemies, the hasty and eager clamour 

" of their erring friends sink, lost and un* 

" distinguished, in the full harmonious ac- 

'' claim." 

In the year 1795, in a letter to me Mr. 
LofFt thus writes, after objecting to the first 
part of the * Age of Reason :' ** I am glad Paine 
*' is living : he cannot be even wrong without 
" enlightening mankind ; such is the vigour of 
** his intellect, such the acuteness of his re- 
" search, and such the force and vivid perspi- 
" cuity of his expressions." 

It has been a fashion among the enemJes 
of Mr. Paine, when unable to cope with his 
arguments, to attack his style, which they 
charge with inaccuracy and want of elegance; 
and some, even of those most friendly to his 
principles, have joined in this captious criti- 
cism. It had not, perhaps, all the meretricious 
ornaments and studied graces that glitter in 
the pages of Burke, which would have been 
so many obscurities in the eyes of that part 
of the community for whose perusal his writings 



32 



were principally intended, but it is singularly 
nervous and pointed; his arguments are always 
forcibly stated, nor does a languid line ever 
weary the attention of the reader. It is true, 
he never studied variety of phrase at the ex-^ 
pence of perspicuity. His object was to en- 
lighten, not to dazzle ; and often, for the sake 
of more forcibly impressing an idea on the 
mind of the reader, he has made use of verbal 
repetitions which to a fastidious ear may perhaps 
sound unmusical. But although, in the opinion 
of some, his pages may be deficient in elegance, 
few will deny that they are copious in matter; 
and, if they sometimes fail to tickle the ear, 
they will never fail to fill the mind. 

Distinctness and arrangement are the pecu* 
liar characteristics of his writings : this reflec- 
tion brings to mind an observation once made 
to him by an American girl, that his head was 
like an orange — it had a separate apartment 
for every thing it contained. 

Notwithstanding this general character of 
his writings, the bold and original style of 
thinking which every where pervades them 



33 



often displays itself in a luxuriance of imagery, 
and a poetic elevation of fancy, which stand 
unrivalled by the pages of our english clas- 
sics. 

Thomas Paine was born at Thetford in the 
county of Norfolk in England, on the 29th 
of January, 1736. His father Joseph Paine, 
who was the son of a small reputable farmer, 
followed the trade of a stay maker, and was by 
religious profession a quaker. His mother's 
maiden name was Frances Cocke, a member of 
the church of England, and daughter of an 
attorney at Thetford. 

They were married at the parish church of 
Euston, near Thetford, the 20th of June, 
1734. 

His father, by this marriage out of the so- 
ciety of quakers, was disowned by that com- 
munity. 

Mr. Paine received his education at the 
grammar school at Thetford, under the Revd. 
Wm. Knowles, master ; and one of his school- 

D 



34 



mates at that time was the late counsellor 
Mingay. 

He gave very early indication of talents and 
strong abilities, and addicted himself, when a 
mere boy, to reading poetical authors ; but this 
4ispositioii his parents endeavoured to discou^ 
rage, 

When a child he composed some lines on 
R fly being caught in a spider's web, and pro- 
duced, when eight years of age, the following 
epitaph on a crow which he buried in the 
garden : — 

Here lies the body of John Crow, 
Who once was high but now is low ; 
Ye brother Crows take warning all. 
For as you rise, so must you fall. 

At this school his studies were directed 
merely to the useful branches of reading, wri- 
ting, and arithmetic, and he left it at thirteen 
years of age, applying, tho he did not like it, 
to his father's business for nearly five years. 

In the year 1756, when about twenty years 



35 



of age, lie went to London, where he worked 
some time in Hanover Street, Long Acre, with 
Mr. Morris, a noted stay maker. 



He continued but a short time in London, 

and it is probable about this time made his 

seafaring adventure of which he thus speaks : 

' At an early age, raw and adventurous, and 

^ heated with the false heroism of a master 

* [Revd. Mr. Knowles, master of the grammar 
' school at Thetford] who had served in a man 
' of war, I began my fortune, and entered on 
' board the Terrible, Captain Death. From 
' this adventure I was happily prevented by 
' the affectionate and moral remonstrances of a 
^ good father, who from the habits of his life, 
' being of the quaker profession, looked on 

* me as lost; but the impression, much as it 

* affected me at the time, wore away, and I 

* entered afterwards in the King of Prussia 
' privateer, Captain Mender, and went with her 

* to sea." 



This way of life Mr. Paine soon left, and 
about the year 1758 worked at his trade for 
near twelve months at Dover. In April 175^ 

D 2 



36 



he settled as a master stay maker at Sandwich ; 
and the "27th of September following married 
Mary Lambert, the daughter of an exciseman 
of that place. In April 1760, he removed with 
his wife to Margate, where she died shortly 
after, and he again mingled with the crouds of 
London. 

In July 1761, disgusted with the toil and 
little gain of his late occupation, he renounced 
it for ever, and determined to apply himself 
to the profession of an exciseman, towards 
which, as liis wife's father was of that call- 
ing, he had some time turned his thoughts. 

At this period he sought shelter under his 
father's roof at Thetford, that he might pro- 
secute, in quiet and retirement, the object of 
his future course. Through the interest of Mr. 
Cocksedge, the recorder of Thetford, after four- 
teen mopths of study, he was estabhshed as a 
supernumerary in the excise, about the age 
of twenty-five. 

In this situation at Grantham and Alford, 
&c. he did not continue more than two or 



37 



three years, when he relinquished it in August 
1765, and commenced it again in July 1766. 

In this interval he was teacher at Mr. Noble's 
academy in Leman Street^ Goodman's Fields, 
at a salary of £25 a year. In a similar occu» 
pation he afterwards lived for a short time, at 
Kensington, with a Mr. Gardner. 

I remember when once speaking of the im- 
provement he gained in the above capacities 
and some other lowly situations he had been 
in, he made this observation : '* Here I derived 
*' considerable information ; indeed I have sel- 
" dom passed five minutes of my life, how- 
" ever circumstanced, in which I did not ae- 
" quire some knowledge." 

During this residence in London Mr. Paine 
attended the philosophical lectures of Martin 
and Ferguson, and became acquainted with 
Dr. Bevis of the Temple, a great astronomer. 
In these studies and in the mathematics he 
soon became a proficient. 

In March 1768 he was settled as an excise^ 



38 



man at Lewes, in Sussex, and there, on the 
2Cth of March 1771, married EHzabeth OHive, 
shortly after the death of her father, whose 
trade of a tobacconist and grocer he entered 
into and carried on. 

In this place he lived several years in habits 
of intimacy with a very respectable, sensible, 
and convivial set of acquaintance, who were 
entertained with his witty sallies, and informed 
by his more serious conversations. 

In politics he was at this time a Whig, and 
notorious for that quality which has been de- 
fined perseverance in a good cause and obsti- 
nacy in a bad one. He was tenacious of his 
opinions, which were bold, acute, and inde- 
pendent, and which he maintained with ardour, 
elegance, and argument 

At this period, at Lewes, the White Hart 
evening club was the resort of a social and 
intelligent circle who, out of fun, seeing that 
disputes often ran very warm and high, fre- 
quently had what they called the ' Headstrong 
Book,' This was no other than an old Greek 



Momer which was sent the nioining aftet* sl 
debate vehemently maintained, to the most 
obstinate haranguer of the Club : this book had 
the following title, as implying that Mr. Paine 
the best deserved and the most frequently 
obtained it* 

fHE 

HEADSTRONG BOOK, 

OR 

ORIGINAL BOOK OF OBSTINACY, 

WRITTEN BY 

***** ♦**», OF LEWES, IN SUSSEX, 

AT^D REVISED AND CORRECTED BY 

THOMAS PAINE. 



EULOGY ON PAINEi 

imtnortal Paine, while mighty reasoners jar. 
We crown thee General of the Headstrdng War ; 
Thy logic vanquish'd error, and thy mind 
No bounds, but those of right and truth, coniinedc 
Thy soul of fire must sure ascend the sky. 
Immortal Paine, thy fame can never die ; 
For men like thee their names must ever save 
From the black edicts of the tyrant grave. 



40 



My friend Mr. Lee, of Lewes, in commu- 
nicating this to me in September 1810, said 
" This was manufactured nearly forty years ago, 
" as appHcable to Mr. Paine, and I believe you 
** will allow, however indifferent the manner, 
" that I did not very erroneously anticipate 
*' his future celebrity." 

During his residence at Lewes, he wrote 
several excellent little pieces in prose and verse, 
and among the rest the celebrated song on the 
death of General Wolfe, beginning 

In a mouldering cave where the wretched retreat * — ^ 

It was about this time he wrote " The Trial 
of Farmer Carter's Dog Porter," in the manner 
of a drama, a work of exquisite wit and hu- 
mour. 

In 1772 the excise officers throughout the 
kingdom formed a design of applying to par- 
liament for some addition to their salaries. 



* This and other of Mr. Paine's poetical effu»ion«, the 
reader will find at the close of this work. 



41 



Upon this occasion Mr. Paine, who by this 
time was distinguished amongst them as a 
man of talent, was fixed upon as a fit person, 
and solicited to draw up their case, and this he 
did in a very succinct and masterly manner. 
This case makes an octavo pamphlet, and four 
thousand copies were printed by Mr. Wm. Lee 
of Lewes : it is entitled *' The Case of the 
Salary of the Officers of Excise, and Thoughts 
on the Corruption arising from the Poverty of 
Excise Officers." No application, however, 
notwithstanding this effort, was made to par- 
liament. 

In April 1774 the goods of his shop were 
sold to pay his debts. 

As a grocer, he trafficked in exciseable 
articles, and being suspected of unfair practices 
was dismissed the excise after being in it 
twelve years. Whether this reason was a just 
one or not never was ascertained : it was how- 
ever the ostensible one, 

Mr. Paine might perhaps have been in the 
habit of smuggling, in common with his neigh- 



42 



boiirs; it was the universal custom along the 
coast, and more or less the practice of all ranks 
of people, from lords and ladies, ministers and 
magistrates, down to the cottager and labourer. 

I cannot, while upon this subject, resist 
the republication of a letter of mine in Octo- 
ber 1807 

" To the Editor of the Independent Whig." 

" Sir, 

*^ if there are any characters more 
to be abhorred than others, it is those who in- 
flict severe punishments against offenders and 
yet themselves commit the same crimes. 

" If any characters more than others de- 
serve execration, exposure, and to be driven 
from among mankind, it is those governors of 
the people who break the laws they themselves 
make, and punish others for breaking. 

" Suffer me, Mr. Editor, thus to preface 
the following fact ; fact I say, because I stand 
ready to prove it so. 



43 



" When Admiral Duncan rendezvoused in 
the Downs with his fleet on the 8th of January 
1806, the Spider higger, Daniel Falara, master, 
was sent to Guernsey to smuggle articles for 
the fleet, such as wine, spirits, hair powder, 
playing cards, tobacco, &c. for the supply of 
the different ships. 

" At her arrival in the Downs, the ships^ 
boats flocked round her to unload het and her 
contraband cargo. A custom-house extra boat 
commanded by William Wallace, seeing the 
lugger, followed and took her; in doing which 
he did his duty. 

" On his inspecting 4he smuggled articles 
with which she was laden, he found a number 
of cases directed to Admiral Duncan, the Right 
Honble William Pitt, the heaven-born minister 
of England, and to the Right Honble Henr}^ 
Dundas, Walmer Castle. In a few days, Wal- 
lace, the master of the custom-house cutter, 
received orders from government to give the 
lugger and her smuggled cargo up, on penalty 
of being dismissed the service, and these cases 
of smuggled goods were afterwards delivered 



44 



at the prime minister's, Mr. Pitt's, at Walmcr 
Castle. 

** Mr. Editor, read what follows, and re- 
press your indignation if you can. 

" There are now in Deal jail fourteen per- 
sons for trifling acts of smuggling compared 
to the above of the Right Honble William Pitt 
and the now Right Honble Lord Melville. 

" The former were poor, and knew not 
how to live, the latter were most affluently 
and splendidly supported by the people ; that 
is, they were paupers upon tl^e generous public, 
towards whom they thus scandalously and infa- 
mously conducted themselves. 

'^ I am, Sir, 
'' Your humble servant, 

'' Clio Rickman." 

As Mr. Paine's being dismissed the excise 
has been a favorite theme with his abusers it 
may be necessary here to relate the following 
fact 



45 



At the time he was an exciseman at Lewes, 
he was so approved for doing his duty that 
Mr. Jenner, principal clerk in the Excise Office, 
London, had several times occasion to write 
letters from the Board of Excise thanking Mr. 
Paine for his assiduity in his profession, and 
for his information and calculations forwarded 
to the office. 

Ill May following Mr. Paine and his wife 
separated hy mutual agreement ; articles of 
which were finally settled on the 4th of June. 
Which of them was in this instance in the 
wrong, or whether either of them was so, must 
be left undetermined ; as on this subject 
no knowledge or judgment can be formed. 
They are now both removed, where, as we 
are told, none ^' are either married or given 
in marriage," and where, consequently, 
there can be no disagreements on this 
score. 

This 1 can assert, that Mr. Paine always 
spoke tenderly and respectfully of his wife; 
and sent her several times pecuniary aid, with- 
out her knowins: even whence it came. 



4(] 



So much has however been said on Mr. 
Paine having never cohabited with Miss OlUve, 
whom he married at Lewes, that if I were en- 
tirely to omit any mention of it, I might be 
charged with doing so because afraid to meet 
the subject, wliich forms, indeed, a very sin- 
gular part of Mr. Paine's history. 

That he did not cohabit with her from the 
moment they left the altar till the day of their 
separation, a space of three years, although 
they lived in the same house together, is an 
indubitable truth. It is also true, that no phy- 
sical defect, on the part of Mr. Paine, can be 
adduced as a reason for such conduct. 

I have in my possession the letters and 
documents on this subject, — Mr. Francis Whee- 
ler's letters from Lewes of April 10, 1774, to 
Mr. Philip Moore, proctor in the Commons, and 
his reply of April 18, 1774; and from Dr. 
Manning of Lewes I have frequently heard a 
candid detail of the circumstances. 

Well, of this curious fact in Mr. Paine's 
life, what is to be said? To make use of it 






47 



as a subject of reproach, abuse, and calumny, 
is absurd : it is one of those things in human 
life upon which we cannot come to any deci- 
sion, and which might have been honourable 
as well as dishonourable to Mr. Paine, I think 
most probably the former, could every why 
and wherefore be known. But as this cannot 
be, the fact, for a fact it is, must be left for 
the reader's reflection ; and I dare say if he is a 
candid one, it is not the only circumstance in 
life which he cannot understand, and upon which 
therefore he should not decide uncharitably. 

Mr. Paine's answer upon my once referring 
to this subject was, " It is nobody's business 
" but my own : I had cause for it, but I will 
" name it to no one." 

Towards the end of this year, 1774, he was 
strongly recommended to the great and good 
Dr. Franklin, " the favour of whose friend- 
" ship," he says, " I possessed in England, and 
" my introduction to this part of the world 
*' [America] was thro his patronage."* 



* Cris^is, No, S. 



48 



Mr. Paine now formed the resolution of 
quitting his native country, and soon crossed 
the Atlantic; and, as he himself relates, arrived 
at Philadelphia in the winter, a few months 
before the battle of Lexington, which was 
fought in April 1775. 

It appears that his first employment in the 
New World was with Mr. Aitkin a bookseller, 
as editor of the Pennsylvanian Magazine; and 
his introduction to that work, dated January 
24th, 177«5, is thus concluded: '^Thusencom- 
" passed with difficulties, this first number of 
" the Pennsylvanian Magazine entreats a favor- 
" able reception ; of which we shall only say, 
*^ that like the early snow-drop it comes forth 
'' in a barren season, and contents itself with 
*' foretelling the reader that choicer flowers 
*' are preparing to appear." 

The following letter from Dr. Rush of Phi- 
ladelphia it is presumed may not improperly 
be given here; but it should be remarked that 
this letter was written as late as July 1809, on 
purpose to be inserted in Cheetham*s infamous 
Life of Mr. Paine, and under some prejudices, 



49 



as appears on the face of it, as well as at a 
period when every misrepresentation and ca- 
lumny had been excited against him. 



" Philadelphia, July 17, 1809. 



" Sir, 



'* In compliance with your re- 
quest, I send you herewith answers to your 
questions relative to the late Thotnas Paine. 

" He came to Philadelphia in the year 
1772^ with a short letter of introduction from 
Dr. Franklin, to one of his friends. 

" His design was to open a school for the 
instruction of young ladies, in several branches 
of knowledge, w^iich at that time was seldom 
taught in the schools of our country. 



" About the year 1773,t I met him acci- 



* Dr. Rush is mistaken — it was 1774. 

t 177&. 

E 



50 



dentally in Mr. Aitkin's book-store, and was 
introduced to him by Mr. Aitkin. We con- 
versed a few minutes, when I left. Soon after- 
wards I read a short essay with which I was 
much pleased, in one of Bradford's papers, 
against the slavery of the Africans in our coun- 
try, and which I was informed was written 
by Mr. Paine. This excited my desire to be 
better acquainted Vvdth him. We met soon 
after this in Mr. Aitkin's book-store, where 1 
did homage to his principles, and pen, upon the 
subject of the enslaved Africans. 

" After this, Mr. Aitkin employed him as 
the editor of his Magazine, with a salary of 
£25 currency a year. This work was well 
supported by him. His song upon the death 
of General Wolfe, and his reflections upon the 
death of Lord Clive, gave it a sudden currency 
which few works of that kind have since had 
Jn our country. 

" When the subject of American indepen- 
dence began to be agitated in general conver- 
sation, I observed the public mind to be loaded 
with an immense mass of prejudice and error 



I 



51 



relative to it. Something appeared to be Want- 
ing to move them, beyond the ordinary short 
and cold addresses of newspaper publications. 

" At this time I called upon Mr. Paine, and 
suggested to him the propriety of preparing 
our citizens for a perpetual separation of our 
country from Great Britain, by means of a 
work of such length, as would obviate all the 
objections to it.^ He seized the idea with avi- 
dity, and immediately began his famous pam- 
phlet in favour of that measure. He read the 
sheets to me at my house, as he composed 
them. When he had finished them, I advised 
him to put them into the hands of Dr. Franklin, 
Samuel Adams, and the late Judge Wilson; 
assuring him at the same time, that they held 
the same opinion that he had defended. 

" The first of those gentlemen, and I be- 



* *I have always understood and still believe that this 
suggestion came originally from Mr. Paine himself; indeed 
Doctor Rush's letter is all through a little egotistical, and 
from the close of it, it may be seen he was also a man of 
prejudice. ^ 

E 2 



5i 



lleve the second, saw the manuscript ; but 
Jiido'e Wilson beino- from home when Mr, Paine 
called upon him, it was not subjected to his 
inspection. No addition was made to it by 
Dr. Franklin, but a passage was struck out, or 
omitted, in the printing it, which I conceive 
to be one of the most striking in it : it was 
the following : * A greater absurdity cannot 

* be conceived than three millions of people 
^ running to tlieir sea-coast every time a ship 

* arrives from London, to ki:iow what portion 
' of liberty they should enjoy.' 

^' A title only was wanted for this pamphlet 
before it was committed to press. Mr. Paine 
proposed to call it ^ Plain Truth:' I objected 
to it, and suggested the title of ' Common 
Sense.' This was instantly adopted, and nothing 
now remained but to find a printer who had 
"boldness enough to publish it. At that time 
there was a certain Robert Bell, an intelligent 
Scotch printer and bookseller in Philadelphia^ 
whom I knew to be as high toned as Mr.'Paine 
upon the subject of American independence. 
I mentioned the pamphlet to him, and he at 
once consented to run the risk of publishing 



53 



it. The author and the printer were imme- 
diately brought together, and ' Common Sense ' 
burst from the press of the latter in a few days 
with an effect which has been rarely produced 
by types and paper in any age or country. 

" Between the time of the publication of 
this pamphlet and the 4th of July 1776, Mr. 
Paine published a number of essays in Mr. 
Bradford's paper under the signature of * The 
Forester,' in defence of the opinions contained 
in his ^ Common Sense/ 

" In the summer and autumn of 1776 he 
served as a volunteer in the American war 
under General Washington. Whether he re- 
ceived pay and rations I cannot tell. He lived 
a good deal with the officers of the first rank 
in the army, at whose tables his ' Common 
Sense' always made him a welcome guest. 
The legislature of Pennsylvania gave Mr. Paine 
<£500 as an acknowledgment of the services 
he had rendered the United States by his pub- 
lications. 



^' He acted as clerk to the legislature of Penn- 



54 



sylvania about the year 1780. I do not know 
the compensation he received for his services 
in that station. He acted a while as secretary 
of the Secret Committee of Congress, but was 
dismissed by them for pubUshing some of their 
secrets relative to Mr. Deane. 

" Mr. Paine's manner of life was desultory : 
he often visited in the families of Dr. Franklin, 
Mr. Ritterhouse, and Mr. G. Clymer; where 
he made himself acceptable by a turn he disco- 
vered for philosophical as well as political 
subjects. 

" After the year 1776 my intercourse with 
Mr. Paine was casual. I met him now and 
then at the tables of some of our whig citizens, 
where he spoke but little, but was always in- 
offensive in his manner and conversation. 

** I possess one of his letters written to me 
from France upon the subject of the abolition 
of the slave trade. An extract from it was 
published in the Columbian Magazine. 

!^ I did not see Mr. Paine when he passed 



55 

tliro Philadelphia a few years ago. His 
principles avowed in his ' Age of Reason ' were 
so offensive to me that I did not wish to renew 
my intercourse with him. 

" I have thus briefly and in great haste 
endeavoured to answer your questions. — Should 
you publish this letter, I beg my testimony 
against Mr. Paine's infidelity may not be omit- 
led in it 

^* From, Sir, 

^' Your's respectfully, 

" Benjamiivj" Rush.'^ 

One cannot read the close of this letter 
without lamenting to see this hackneyed word 
" infidelity" so everlastingly misapplied to injure 
and vilify those against whom it is hurled. 
The word " infidelity" means only a disbelief 
of any opinion or any thing advanced, and 
may be with propriety applied to christians as 
not believing in deism, as well as to deists 
as not believing in Christianity; so that all 



56 



sectarians and all believers are infidels to their 
opposing doctrines. 

. As it may amuse the reader to see Mr. 
Paine's style while editor of the Pennsylvanian 
Magazine, the following extract is given from 
one of his essays on the riches of the earth 
and the diligence necessarv to discover them : 

" Tho Nature is gay, polite, and generous 
" abroad, she is sullen, rude, and niggardly 
^' at home. Return the visit, and she admits 
*' you with all the suspicion of a miser, and all 
*' the reluctance of an antiquated beauty retired 
^' to replenish her charms. Bred up in antide- 
*' luvian notions, she has not yet acquired the 
" european taste of receiving visits in her dress- 
^' ing room; she locks and bolts up her private 
'' recesses with extraordinary care, as if not 
^' only determined to preserve her hoards, but 
'' to conceal her age, and hide the remains of a 
^' face that was young and lovely before the 
^' days of Adam. He that would view Nature 
'' in her undress, and partake of her internal 
*^ treasures, must proceed with the resolution 
^^ of a robber, if not a ravisher : she gives no 



57 



*' invitations to follow "her to the cavern. The 
" external eai :h makes no proclamation of the 
" interior stores, but leaves to chance and in- 
" dustry the dibcovery of the whole. In such 
" gifts as nature can annually recreate she is 
'^ noble and profuse, and entertains the whole 
" world with the interests of her foi lunes, but 
^' watches over the capital with the care of a 
" miser. Her o'old and jewels lie concealed in the 
'' earth, in caves of utter darkness ; the hoards of 
^' wealth moulder in the chests, like the riches of 
" the necromancer's cell. It must be very plea- 
" sant to an adventurous speculatist to make 
" excursions into these gothic regions : in his 
" travels he may possibly come to a cabinet 
" locked up in some rocky vault whose treasures 
^' might reward his toil and enable him to shine 
" on his return as splendidly as Nature herself." 

Soon after his return to America, as foreign 
supplies of gunpowder were stopt, he turned 
his attention to chemistry, and set his fertile 
talents to work in endeavourino; to discover 
some cheap and expeditious method of furnish- 
ing Congress with saltpetre ; and he proposed 
in the Pennsylvanian Journal, Nov. 2, 1775, 



58 



tlie plan of a saltpetre association for volun- 
tarily supplying the national magazines with 
gunpowder. 

His popularity in America now increased 
daily, and from this era he became a great 
public character and an object of interest and 
attention to the world. 

In 1776, on the 10th of January he pub- 
lished the celebrated and powerfully discrimi- 
nating pamphlet ^ Common Sense.' 

Perhaps the greatest compliment that can 
be paid to this work is the effect it so rapidly 
had on the people, who had before no predis- 
position towards its principles, as may be ga- 
thered from Mr. Paine's own words, 

" I found the disposition of the people such, 
" that they might have been led by a thread 
*' and governed by a reed. Their attachment 
*' to Britain was obstinate, and it was at that 
" time a kind of treason to speak against it; 
" they disliked the ministry but they esteemed 
" the nation. Their idea of grievance operated 



.^9 



" without resentment, and their single object 
*^ was reconcihation," — Crisis, No. 7. 

" Independence was a doctrine scarce and 
" rare, even towards the conclusion of the 
" year 1775. All our politics had been founded 
" on the hope or expectation of making the 
" matter up, a hope which though general on the 
" side of America, had never entered the head 
" or heart of the British court." — Crisis, No. 3. 

Even Mr. Cheetham, whom no one will 
suspect of flattering Mr. Paine, thus forcibly 
describes the effects of ' Common Sense ' on the 
people of America. 

" This pamphlet of forty octavo pages, 
" holding out reUef by proposing independence 
*' to an oppressed and despairing people, was 
*' published in January 1776; speaking a lan- 
'' guage which the colonists had felt, but not 
'' thought of. its popularity, terrible in its 
" consequences to the parent country, was 
" unexampled in the history of the press.* 



Nothing could be better timed than this performance; 



6'0 



'" At first involving the colonists it was thought 

'' in the crime of rebeUion, and pointing to a 

■^ road leading inevitably to ruin, it was read 

' with indignation and alarm ; but when the 

^ reader, and every body read it, recovering 

' the first shock, re-perused it, its arguments 

^ nourishing his feelings and appealing to his 

'' pride, re-animated his hopes, and satisfied his 

^ nnderstanding, that * Common Sense,' hacked 

' by the resources and force of the colonies, 

' poor and feeble as they were, could alone 

' rescue them from the unqualified oppression 



In union with the feelings and sentiments of the people it 
produced surprising effects, — many thousands were con- 
vinced, and led to approve, and long for separation from the 
mother country; tho that measure was not only a few months 
before foreign to tlieir wishes, but the object of their ab- 
horrence, the current suddenly became so much in its favour, 
that it bore down all before it." — Rumsay's Rev. vol. 1. pa^e 
367 i London, 1793. 



*' The publications which have appeared, have greatly 
promoted the spirit of independency, but no one so much 
as the pamphlet under the signature of ' Common Sense,' 
written by Mr. Thomas Paine, an Englishman. Nothing 
could have been better timed than this performance: it has 
produced most astonishing effects." — Gordons Rev. vol. 2. 
page 78, New York, 1794. 



61 



" with which they were threatened. The un- 
^' known author, in the moments of enthusiasm 
'^ which succeeded, was an angel sent from 
'' heaven to save from all the horrors of slavery 
" by his timely, powerful, and unerring councils, 
" a faithful but abused, a brave but misrepre- 
" sented people." — Cheetham's Life of Paine J^ 

' Common Sense,' it appears, was univer- 
sally read and approved : the first edition sold 
almost immediately, and the second with very 
large additions was before the public soon 
after. On this production and some others, 
and his motives for writing, Mr. Paine thus 
remarks : 



* When * Common Sense* arrived at Albany the Conven- 
tion of New Yoi k was'in session : General Scott, a leading 
member, alarmed at the boldness and novelty of its argu- 
ments, mention k1 his fears to several of his distinguished 
colleagues, and -nggested a private meeting in the evening 
for the purpose of writing an answer. They accordingly met, 
and Mr. M'Kesson read the pamphlet thro. At first it was 
deemed both r/jcessary and expedient to answer it imrae- 
diately, but casing about for the necessary arguments they 
concluded to aliourn and meet again. In a few evenings 
they assembled but so rapid was the change of opinion in the 
colonies at large in favour of independence, tliat they ulti- 
mately agreed not to oppose it. 



62 



^' Politics and self interest have been so 

" uniformly connected that the world from be- 

" ing so often deceived has a right to be suspi- 

** cious of public characters. But with regard 

" to myself I am perfectly easy on this head. 

** I did not at my first setting out in pub- 

•^ lie life, nearly seventeen years ago, turn my 

" thoughts to subjects of government from mo- 

'* tives of interest; and my conduct from that 

" moment to this proves the fact. I saw an 

" opportunity in which I thought I could do 

" some good, and I followed exactly what my 

*^ heart dictated : I neither read books, nor 

*^ studied other people's opinions — I thought for 

" myself. The case was this : 

" During the suspension of the old go- 
" vernment in America, both prior to and 
'* at the breaking out of hostilities, I was 
" struck with the order and decorum with 
" which every thing was conducted, and im- 
*' prest with the idea that a little more than 
'' what society naturally performed was all the 
" government that was necessary. On these 
*' principles I published the pamphlet * Com- 
** mon Sense.' 



63 



^' The success it met with was beyond any 
" thing since the invention of printing. I 
'' gave the copyright up to every state in the 
" Union, and the demand run to not less than 
" one hundred thousand copies, and I conti- 
^' nued the subject under the title of ' American 
" Crisis,' till the complete establishment of the 
" American revolution." 

Further he says, " It was the cause of Ame- 
" rica that made me an author. The force 
'^ with which it struck my mind made it 
" impossible for me, feeling as I did, to be 
'' silent; and if in the course of seven years 
'^ I have rendered her any service, I have 
*^ added likewise something to the reputation 
" of literature by freely and disinterestedly 
" employing it in the service of mankind, and 
" ahowing there may be genius without pros- 
" titution." 

Owing to this disinterested conduct of Mr. 
Paine, it appears that tho the sale of ' Com- 
mon Sense' was so great, he was in debt to the 
printer ^£^29. 12,?. Id, This liberality and con- 
scientious discharge of his duty with respect 



64 



to his serviceable writings, as he called them^ 
he adopted thro life. " When I bring out my 
" poetical and anecdotical works," he would 
often say to me, *^ which will be little better 
" than amusing, I shall sell them; but I must 
" have no gain in view, must make no traffic of 
" my political and theological writings : they 
" are with me matter of principle, and not 
" matter of money : I cannot desire to derive 
" benefit from them, or make them the sub- 
" ject to attain it." 

And twenty-seven years after the publi- 
cation of ' Common Sense,' he thus writes to a 
friend. ^^ As the French revolution advanced 
" it fixed the attention of the world, and drew 
" from the pen of Edmund Burke a furious attack ; 
" this brought me once more on the pubhc the- 
*^ atre of public politics, and occasioned my 
" writing a work that had the greatest run of 
^* any ever published in the English language. 
" The principles in it were the same as those in 
" my former one. As to myself I acted in both 
" cases alike. 

" I relinquished to the people of England 



65 



" all profit, as I had done to those of America, 
'* from the work ; my reward existed in the am- 
" bition of doing good, and in the independent 
*V happiness of my 6\vn mind. Ini my publica- 
*' tions I follow the rule I began, that is to 
*' consult with nobody, nor let any body see 
" w^hat I write till it appears publicly f were I 
*^ to do otherwise the case would be that be- 

* A ridiculous notion has been often broached, that 
Mr. Paine wrote not the works attributed to him; or if he 
did, that he was greatly assisted : this silly stuff has been 
generally urged by his opponents, as if, even supposiiig it 
was so, it invalidated their matter, or in any way rendered 
them less true : the contrary is the fact. Mr. Paine was so 
tenacious on this subject that he would not alter a line or 
word, at the suggestion even of a friend. 

I remember when he read me his letter to Diindas in 
1792, I objected to the pun, Madjesty, as beneath him ; 
"Never mind," he said, "they say Mad Tom of me, so I shall 
let it stand Madjesty ."" I say not that his tenacity on this sub- 
ject was not absurd ; but it affords the fullest contradiction 
to the opinion, that he ever had the least aid or assistance 
in his writings, or suffered the smallest alteration to be made 
in them by others. 

If the reader will refer to the period in which Mr. Paine 
made use of this pun he will find that it could not liave any 
allusion to the king's melancholy infirmity — he was one of 
the last men in the world to be guilty of any thing of the kind ; 
nor can it be supposed it is now brought forward but for the 
reason stated. 

F 



66 



*' twccn the timidity of some who are so afraid 
'* of doing wrong that they never do right, the 
" puny judgment of others, and the despicable 
" craft of preferring expedient to right, as if 
" the world was a world of babies in leading 
** strings, I should get forward with nothing. 

** My path is a right line, as strait and 
" clear to me as a ray of light. The boldness 
" (if they will have it so) with which I speak 
" on any subject is a compliment to the person 
" I address ; it is like saying to him, I treat you 
" as a man and not as a child. With respect to 
" any worldly object, as it is impossible to dis- 
" cover any in me, therefore what I do, and my 
" manner of doing it, ought to be ascribed to a 
" good motive. In a great affair, where the 
" good of man is at stake, I love to work for 
'* nothing; and so fully am I under the influ- 
*^ ence of this principle, that I should lose the 
" spirit, the pride, and the pleasure of it, were 
" I conscious that I looked for reward." 

In the course of this year, 1776, Mr. 
Paine accompanied the army with General 
Washington, and was with him in his retreat 



67 



from Hudson's River to the Delaware. At this 
period our author stood undismayed^ amid a 
flying congress, and the general terror of the 
land. The Americans- he loudly asserted, were 
in possession of resources sufficient to authorize 
hope, and he laboured to inspire others with the 
same sentiments, which animated himself. 

To effect this, on the 19th of December 
he published ' The Crisis,' wherein with a 
niasterly hand he stated every reason for hope, 
and examined all the motives for apprehension. 

This work he continued at various intervals, 
till the revolution was completely established ; 
the last number appeared on the 19th of April, 
1783, the same day a cessation of hostilities 
was proclaimed. 

In 1777, congress unanimously and unknown 
to Mr. Paine, appointed him secretary in the 
foreign department; and from this time a close 
friendship continued between him and Dr. 
Franklin, 

From his office went all letters that were 
officially written by congress : and the corre- 



68 



spondence of congress rested afterwards in his 
hands. 

This appointment gave Mr. Paine an 
opportunity of seeing into foreign courts, and 
their manner of doing business and conducting 
themselves. In this office which obliged him 
to reside with congress wherever it fled, or 
however it was situated, Mr. Paine deserved 
the highest praise for the clearness, firmness, 
and magnanimity of his conduct. His up? 
rightness and entire fitness for this office did 
not however prevent intrigue and interested- 
ness, or defeat cabal; for a difference being 
fomented between congress and him, re- 
specting one of their commissioners then in 
Europe, (Mr. Silas Deane) he resigned his 
secretaryship on the 8th of January, 1779, 
and decUned, at the same time, the pecu- 
niary offers made him by the ministers of 
France and Spain, M. Gerrard and Don Juan 
Mirralles. 

This resignation of, or dismissal from his 
situation as secretary for foreign affairs, has 
been so variously mentioned and argued upon, 



69 



that the reader is referred to the tedious de- 
tail of it in the journals of the day, if he 
has patience to wade thro so much American 
temporary, and party political gossip. Mr. 
Paine's own account in his letter to congress 
shortly is, " I prevented Deane's fraudulent 
" demand being paid, and so far the country 
" is obliged to me, but I became the victim 
" of my integrity." 



The party junto against him say he was 
guilty of a violation of his official duty, &c. 

And here I shall leave it, as the bick- 
erings of parties in America, in the year 
1779, cannot be worth an European's atten- 
tion; and as to the Americans themselves 
they have various means by their legislatural 
records, registers of the day, and pamphlets^ 
then and since, to go into the subject if they 
think it of importance enough. 

About this time Mr. Paine had the de- 
gree of master of arts conferred on him by 
the university of Philadelphia; and in 1780, 
was chosen a member of the American Phi^ 



70 



losopbical Society, when it was revived by 
the legislature of the province of Pennsylvania. 

In February 1781 Colonel Laurens, amidst 
the financial distress of America, w^as sent on a 
mission to France in order to obtain a loan, 
and Mr. Paine, at the solicitation of the co- 
lonel, accompanied him. 

Mr. Paine, in his letter to congress, intimates 
that this mission originated with himself, and 
takes upon himself the credit of it. 

They arrived in France the following 
month, obtained a loan of ten millions of 
livres, and a present of six millions, and 
landed in America the succeeding August 
with two millions and a half in silver. His 
value, his firmness, his independence, as a 
political character were now universally ac- 
knowledged; his great talents, and the high 
purposes to which he devoted them, made 
him generally sought after and looked up to; 
and General Washington was foremost to 
express the great sense he had of the ex- 
cellence of his character, and the importance 
of his services; and would himself have pro- 



71 



posed to congress a great remuneration of 

them, had not Mr. Paine positively objected 

to it, as a bad precedent, and an improper 
mode. 

In August 1782, he published his spirited 
letter to the Abb6 Raynal; of this letter a 
very sensible writer observes, ** that it dis- 
" plays an accuracy of judgment and strength 
" of penetration that would do honour to the 
^' most enlightened philosopher. It exhibits 
" proofs of knowledge so comprehensive, and 
^* discrimination so acute, as must in the 
" opinion of the best judges place the author 
** in the highest ranks of literature." 

We shall here make a few extracts from 
this work, which will fully refute the malig- 
nant insinuations of his enemies, who represent 
him as totally destitute of the benefits resulting 
from a liberal education. The impartial reader 
need only attend to the ensuing extracts, which 
will abundantly convince him of the futility 
of such assertions, and prove our author's judg- 
ment as a critic, and his acquaintance with 
polite learning. 



In the introduction to this letter are the 
following expressions : '* There are few men 
" in any country who can at once, and without 
*' the aid of reflection and revisal, comhine 
" warm passions with a cool temper, and the 
" full expansion of imagination with the na- 
** tural and necessary gravity of judgment, so 
*' as to be riglitly balanced within themselves, 
^' and to make a reader feel, fancy, and under- 
" stand justly at the same time. To call these 
" powers of the mind into action at once, in a 
*' manner that neither shall interrupt, and that 
** each shall aid and invigorate the other, is 
'^ a talent very rarely possessed." 

"It often happens that the weight of an 
** argum.ent is lost by the wit of setting it oif, 
** or the judgment disordered by an intem- 
" perate irritation of the passions; yet a certain 
" degree of animation must be felt by the 
" writer, and raised in the reader, in order 
" to interest the attention, and a sufficient 
" scope given to the imagination to enable 
" it to create in the mind a sight of the per- 
" sons, characters, and circumstances of the 
" subject ; for without these, the judgment 



73 



" will feel little or no excitement to office, 
" and its determination will be cold, sluggish, 
" and imperfect. But if cither or both of the 
" two former are raised too high, or heated 
" too much, the judgment will be jostled from 
" its seat, and the w^hole matter, however 
" perfect in itself, will diminish into a pan- 
" tomime of the mind, in which we create 
*' images that promote no other purpose than 
'* amusement." 

" The abbes writings bear evident marks 
" of that extension and rapidity of thinking, 
" and quickness of sensation, which above all 
" others require revisal." 

In the course of the letter we find the fol- 
lowing admirable remarks on the Abb6 Ray- 
nal's writings : 

" In this paragraph the conception is lofty 
^' and the expressions elegant ; but the colour- 
" ing is too high for the original, and the 
" likeness fails through an excess of graces." 

" To fit the powers of thinking and the 



74 



" turn of language to the subject, so as to 
" bring out a clear conclusion that shall hit the 
'" point in question and nothing else, is the true 
'' criterion of writing. But the greater part of 
"the abba's writings, if he will pardon me the 
" remark, appear to me uncentral, and burthened 
" with variety. They represent a beautiful wil- 
" derness without paths, in which the eye is 
" diverted b}^ every thing, without being par- 
'^ ticularly directed to any thing, in which it is 
" agreeable to be lost and difficult to find the 
'• way out." 

The following luminous passage on preju- 
dice, and the comparison drawn to illustrate 
it, exhibit at once the eloquence of the orator 
and the j\idgment of the philosopher. 

" There is something exceedingly curious in 

" the constitution and operation of prejudice: 

" it has the singular ability of accommodating 

^^ itself to all the possible varieties of the human 

" mind. Some passions and vices are but thinly 

" scattered among mankind, and find only here 

*' and there a fitness of reception. But prejudice, 

" like the spider, makes every where its home. 



75 



"It has neither taste nor choice of place, and all 
" that it requires is room. There is scarcely a 
" situation except iire and water, in which a 
" spider will not live ; so let the mind be as 
" naked as the walls of an empty and forsaken 
" tenement, gloomy as a dungeon, or ornamented 
*' with the richest abilities of thinking, let it be 
^' hot, cold, dark, or light, lonely or inhabited, 
" still prejudice, if undisturbed, will fill it 
" with cobwebs, and live like the spider 
" where there seems nothing to live on. If 
^' the one prepares her poisoning to her pa- 
'* late, and her use, the other does the same, 
" and as several of our passions are strongly 
" characterized by the animal world, prejudice 
** may be denominated the spider of the 
" mind." 

On the 29th of October he brought out 
his excellent letter to the Earl of Shelburne 
on his speech in the House of Lords, July 
the 10th, 1782. 

To get an idea of the speech of this 
earl, it may not be necessary to quote more 
than the following sentence. "When Great 



76 



*' Britain acknowledges American indepen- 
" dence the sun of Britain's glory is set for 
'' ever." 

'^ When the war ended,'* says Mr. Paine, " I 
" went from Philadelphia to Bordentown on 
" the east end of the Delaware, where I 
" have a small place. Congress was at this 
" time at Prince Town fifteen miles distant, 
" and General Washington had taken his 
" head quarters at Rocky Hill within the 
" neighbourhood of congress for the purpose 
" of resigning his commission, the object for 
'' which he had accepted it being accom- 
" plished, and of retiring to private life. 
*^ While he was on this business he wrote 
" me the letter which I here subjoin." 

'' Rocky Hill, Sept. 10, 1783. 

*' 1 have learned since I have been at this 
place that you are at Bordentown. Whether 
for the sake of retirement or economy I know 
not ; be it for either, for both, or whatever it 
may, if you will come to this place and partake 
with me, I shall be exceedingly happy to see 



77 



you at it. Your presence may remind congress 
of ypur past services to. this country, and if it is 
in my power to impress theni pommantd my best 
services with freedom ; as they will be rendered 
cheerful by one who entertains a lively sense of 
the importance of your works, and who with 
much pleasure subscribes himself 

" Your sincere friend, 

" G. Washington.'' 

In 1785 congress granted Mr. Paine three 
thousand dollars for his services to the people of 
America^ as may be seen by the following 
document. 

" Friday, August 26, 1785. 

" On the report of a committee consisting of 
Mr. Gerry, Mr. Petit, and Mr. King, to whom 
was referred a letter of the 1 3th from Thomas 
Paine; 

" Resolved, That the early, unsolicited, and 
continued labours of Mr. Thomas Paine, in 
explaining the principles of the late revolution, 
by ingenious and timely publications upon the 
nature of liberty and civil government, have 



78 



been well received by the citizens of these 
states, and merit the approbation of congress ; 
and that in consideration of these services, and 
the benefits produced thereby, Mr, Paine is 
entitled to a liberal gratification from the 
United States." 

'* Monday, October 3, 1785. 

" On the report of a committee consisting 
of Mr. Gerry, Mr. Howell, and Mr. Long, to 
whom were referred sundry letters from Mr. 
Thomas Paine, and a report on his letter of the 
l4th of September ; 

" Resolved, That the board of treasury take 
order for paying to Mr. Thomas Paine, the sum 
of three thousand dollars, for the considerations 
of the 23rd of August last." Journals of 
Congress. 

The state of Pennsylvania, in which he first ^ 
published ' Common Sense' and ' The Crisis,' 
in 1785, presented him, by an act of legislature, 
^600 currency. New York gave him the 
estate at New Rochell6 in the county of West- 
chester, consisting of more than three hundred 



79 



acres of land in high cultivation : on this 
estate was an elegant stone house, 125 by 28 
feet, besides out-houses : the latter property 
was farmed much to his advantage, during his 
long stay in Europe, by some friends, as v/ill 
hereafter be more fully noticed. 

Mr. Monroe, when ambassador in England, 
once speaking on this subject at my house, said 
that Mr. Paine would have received a very 
large remuneration from the state of Virginia, 
but that while the matter was before the 
assembly, and he was extremely popular and 
in high favour, he published reasons against 
some proceedings of that state which he 
thought improper, and thereby lost, by a 
majority of one, the high reward he would 
otherwise have received ^';, — a memorable 
instance of the independence of his mind, and 
of his attachment to truth and right above all 
other considerations. A conduct exactly oppo- 



* This work was entitled * Public Good, being an 
Examination of the Claim of Virginia to the vacant Western 
Territory.' 



80 



site to that of the pensioned Burke, whose 
venahty cannot be better j3ointed out than in 
the following conversation with Mr. Paine, 
after dining together at the Duke of Portland's 
at Bulstrode. 



Burke was very inquisitive to know how 
the Americans were disposed toward the king of 
England, w^hen Mr. Paine, to whom the subject 
was an ungracious one, and who felt teazed, 
related the following anecdote. 

At a small town, in which was a tavern bear- 
ing the sign of the king's head, it was insisted on 
by the inhabitants that a memento so odious 
should not continue up ; but there was. no 
painter at hand, to change it mto General 
Washington, or any other favorite, so the sign 
was suffered to remain, with this inscription 
under it — 

This is the sign of the Loggerhead ! 

Burke, who at this moment was a concealed 
pensioner, tho a public oppositionist, replied 
peevishly, '* Loggerhead or any other head, be 



81 



*^ lias many good things to give away, and I 
" should be glad of some of them." 

This same Mn Burke, in one of his speeches 
in the House of Commons, said, " kings were 
naturally fond of low company," and *' that 
many of the nobility act the part of flatterers, 
parasites, pimps, and buiFoons/' &e. : but his 
character will be best appreciated, by reading 
Mr. Paine's Letter to the Addressers. 

In 1780 he published in Philadelphia * Dis- 
sertation on Government, the Affairs of the 
Bank, and Paper Money,' an octavo pamphlet 
of sixty-four pages. The bank alluded to is 
the bank of North America, of which he thus 
speaks i ..^ 

** In the year 1780, when the British army 
" having laid waste the southern states, closed 
" its ravages by the capture of Charlston, when 
** the financial sources of congress were dried 
** up> when the public treasury was empty, and 
" the army of independence paralysed by want, 
*' a voluntary subscription for its relief was 
" raised in Philadelphia. This voluntary fund, 



82 



" amounting to three hundred thousand pounds, 
*' afterwards converted into a hank hy the 
*' subscribers, headed by Robert Norris, sup- 
" plied the wants of the army ; probably the 
" aids which it furnished enabled Washington 
" to carry into execution his well- concerted 
" plan against Cornwallis. Congress in the 
^' year 1781 incorporated the subscribers to the 
** fund, under the title of the Bank of North 
" America. In the following year it was fur- 
" ther incorporated by an act of the Penn- 
" sylvanian assembly." 

Mr. Paine liberally subscribed fi\^ hundred 
dollars to this fund. 

After the establishment of the indepen- 
dence of America, of the vigorous and success- 
ful exertions to attain which glorious object 
he had been the animating principle, soul^ and 
support; feeling his exertions no longer requi- 
site in that country, he embarked for France, 
and arrived at Paris early in 1787, carry- 
ing with him his fame as a literary man, an 
acute philosopher, and most profound poli- 
tician. 



83 



At this time he presented to the Aca- 
demy of Sciences the model of a bridge 
which he invented, the principle of which 
has been since so highly celebrated and ap- 
proved. 

From Paris he arrived in England the 3d 
of September, just thirteen years after his 
departure for Philadelphia. Prompted by that 
filial affection which his conduct had ever 
manifested he hastened to Thetford to visit his 
mother, on whom he settled an allowance of 
nine shillings a week. Of. this comfortable 
solace she was afterwards deprived by the 
bankruptcy of the merchant in whom the 
trust was vested. 

Mr. Paine resided at Rotherham in York- 
shire during part of the year 1788, where an 
iron bridge upon the principle alluded to was 
cast and erected, and obtained for him among 
the mathematicians of Europe a high repu- 
tation. In the erection of this, a considerable 
sum had been expended, for which he was 
hastily arrested by the assignees of an Ame- 
rican merchant, and thrown into confinement. 

o2 



84 



Prom this however, and the debt, he cleared 
himself in about three weeks.* 

The publication of * Mr. Burke's Reflections 
on the French Revolution' produced in reply 
from Mr. Paine his great, universally known, 
and celebrated work 'Rights of Man.' The 
first part of this work was written partly at 
the Angel at Islington^ partly in. Harding 
Street, Fetter Lane, and finished at Versailles. 
In February 1791 this book made its appear- 
ance in London, and many hundred thousand 
copies were rapidly sold. 

Li May following he went again to France, 
and was at Paris at the time of the flight of 
the king, and also on his return. On this me- 
morable occasion he made this observation : 
" You see the absurdity of your system of 
*' government ; here will be a whole nation 
^' disturbed "by the folly of one man." Upon 
this subject also he made the following reply 
to the Marquis la Fayette who came into his 



♦ More or less upon this plan of Mr. Paine's, the diffe- 
rent iron bridges in Europe have been constructed* 



85 



bed-room before he was up, saying, " The birds 
'' are flown." *' 'Tis well : I hope there will 
" be no attempt to recall them." 

On the 13th of July he returned to London, 
but did not attend the celebration of the anni- 
versary of the French revolution the following 
day, as has been falsely asserted. 

On the 20th of August he drew up the 
address and declaration of the gentlemen who 
met at the Thatched House Tavern. This 
address is so replete with, wisdom and mode- 
ration that it is here subjoined. 

*^ Address and Declaration* of the Friends of 
Universal Peace and Liberty, held at the 
Thatched House Tavern, St. James's Street, 
Aug. 30, 1791, by Thomas Paine, Author 
of the Works entitled * Common Sense ' 
and ' Rights of Man.' 

*^ Friends and Fellow Citizens, 

" At a moment like the present, 
when wilful misrepresentations are industri- 

* Vide Appendix to lid part of 'Rights of Man,' 



86 



ously spread by partizans of arbitrary power 
and the advocates of passive obedience and 
court government, we think it incumbent 
upon us to declare to the world our principles, 
and the motives of our conduct. 

" We rejoice at the glorious event of the 
French revolution. If it be asked, ' What is 
the French revolution to us?' we answer as 
has been already answered in another place.* 
' It is much — much to us as men ; much to us 
' as Englishmen. As men, we rejoice in the 
^ freedom of twenty-five millions of men. We 
' rejoice in the prospect, which such a magni- 
' ficent example opens to the world.' 

" We congratulate the French nation for 
having laid the axe to the foot of tyranny, 
and for erecting government on the sacred 
hereditary rights of man; rights which apper- 
tain to all, and not to any one more than an- 
other. 

" We know of no human authority superior 
to that of a whole nation ; and we profess and 

* Declaration of the volunteers of Belfast. 



87 



proclaim it as our principle that every nation 
has at all times an inherent indefesible right 
to constitute and establish such government 
for itself as best accords with its disposition, 
interest, and happiness. ^ 

" As Englishmen, we also rejoice, because 
we are immediately interested in the French 
revolution. 

" Without inquiring into the justice on either 
side, of the reproachful charges of intrigue and 
ambition which the English and French courts 
have constantly made on each other, we con- 
fine ourselves to this observation, that if the 
court of France only was in fault, and the 
numerous wars which have distressed both 
countries are chargeable to her alone, that court 
now exists no longer, and the cause and the 
consequence must cease together. The French 
therefore, by the revolution they have made, 
have conquered for us as well as for them- 
selves, if it be true that this court only was 
in fault, and ours never. 

" On this state of the case the French re- 



88 



volution concerns us immediately : we are 
oppressed witlv a heavy national debt, a bur- 
then of taxes, an expensive administration of 
government, beyond those of any people in 
the world. 

" We have also a very numerous poor ; and 
we hold that the moral obligation of providing 
for old age, helpless infancy, and poverty, is 
far superior to that of supplying' the invented 
wants of courtly extravagance, ambition, and 
intrigue, 

" We believe there is no instance to be 
produced but in England, of seven millions of 
inhabitants, which make but little more than 
one million families, paying yearly seventeen 
millions of taxes.* 

" As it has always been held out by the 
administrations that the restless ambition of 
the court of France rendered this ex pence ne- 
cessary to us for our own defence, we conse- 
quently rejoice as men deeply interested in the 

* Now nearly seventy millions! 



89 



French revolution, for that court, as we have 
already said, exists no longer, and conse- 
quently the same enormous expenses need not 
continue to us. 

" Thus rejoicing as we sincerely do, both 
as men and Englishmen, as lovers of universal 
peace and freedom, and as friends to our na- 
tional prosperity and reduction of our public 
expences, we cannot but express our astonish- 
ment that any part of any members of our own 
government should reprobate the extinction 
of that very power in France, or wish to see 
it restored, to whose influence they formerly 
attributed (whilst they appeared to lament) the 
enormous increase of our own burthens and 
taxes. What, then, are they sorry that the 
pretence for new oppressive taxes, and the 
occasion for continuiug many old taxes, will 
be at an end? If so, and if it is the policy of 
courts and court government to prefer enemies 
to friends, and a system of vi ar to that of peace, 
as affording more pretences for places, of^ces, 
pensions, revenue and taxation, it is high time 
for the people of every nation tOv look with 
cnrcumspection to their own interest, 



90 



" Those who pay the expences, and not 
those who participate in the emoluments ari- 
sing from them, are the persons immediately 
interested in inquiries of this kind. We are a 
part of that national body on whom this annual 
expence of seventeen millions falls; and we 
consider the present opportunity of the French 
revolution as a most happy one for lessening the 
enormous load under which this nation groans. 
If this be not done we shall then have reason 
to conclude that the cry of intrigue and am- 
bition against other courts is no more than 
the common cant of all courts. 

" We think it also necessary to express 
our astonishment that a government desirous 
of being called free, should prefer connexions 
with the most despotic and arbitrary powers in 
Europe. We know of none more deserving this 
description than those of Turkey and Prussia, 
and the whole combination of German despots. 

" Separated as we happily are by nature 
from the tumults of the continent, we repro- 
bate all systems and intrigues which sacrifice 
(and that too at a great expence) the blessings 



91 



of our natural situation. Such systems cannot 
have a natural origin. 

" If we are asked what government is, we 
hold it to be nothing more than a national as- 
sociation; and we hold that to be the best 
which secures to every man his rights and 
promotes the greatest quantity of happiness 
with the least expence. We live to improve, 
or we live in vain ; and therefore we admit of 
no maxims of government or policy on the 
mere score of antiquity or other men's autho- 
rity, the old whigs or the new. 

" We will exercise the reason with which 
we are endued, or we possess it unworthily. 
As reason is given at all times, it is for the 
purpose of being nsed at all times. 

'^ Among the blessings which the French 
revolution has produced to that nation we 
enumerate the abolition of the feudal system, 
of injustice, and of tyranny, on the 4th of 
August, 1789. Beneath the feudal system 
all Europe has long groaned, and from it 
England is not yet free. Game laws, bo- 



92 



rough tenures, and tyrannical monopolies of 
numerous kinds still remain amongst us; but 
rejoicing as we sincerely do in the freedom 
of others till we shall haply accomplish our 
own. we intended to commemorate this prelude 
to the universal extirpation of the feudal 
system by meeting on the anniversary of 
that day, (the 4th of August) at the Crown 
and Anchor : from this meeting we were 
prevented hy the interference of certain un- 
named and sculking persons with the master 
of the tavern, w^ho informed us that on 
their representation he would not receive us. 
Let those w^ho live by or countenance feu- 
dal oppressions take the reproach of this 
ineffectual meanness and cowardice to them- 
selves: they cannot stifle the public decla- 
ration of our honest, open, and avowed 
opinions. These are our principles, and these 
our sentiments; they embrace the interest 
and happiness of the great body of the 
nation of which we are a part. As to riots 
and tumults, let those answer for them who 
by wilful misrepresentations endeavour to 
excite and prom.ote them; or who seek to 
stun the sense of the nation, and lose the great 



d3 



cause of public good in the outrages of a 
mis-informed mob. We take our ground on 
principles that require no such riotous aid. 

" We have nothing to apprehend from the 
poor for we are pleading their cause; and 
we fear not proud oppression for we have 
truth on our side. 

" We say and we repeat it, that the French 
revolution opens to the world an opportunity 
in which all good citizens must rejoice, that 
of promoting the general happiness of man, 
and that it moreover offers to this country 
in particular an opportunity of reducing our 
enormous taxes : these are our objects, and 
we will pursue them. 

" John Horne Tooke, chairman." 

The language of this address is bold 
and free, but not more so than that of the 
late Lord Chatham, or of that once violent 
advocate of reform, the late Mr. Pitt, better 
known by the title of the ' Enemy of the 
Human Race.' 



H 



" There is a set of men" (says the Earl 
of Chatham) " in the city of London, who 
" are known to live in riot and luxury, 
" upon the plunder of the ignorant, the 
" innocent, and the helpless, upon that part 
" of the community which stands most in 
" need of, and best deserves the care and 
" protection of the legislature. To me, my 
'' lords, whether they be miserable jobbers 
" of 'Change Alley, or the lofty Asiatic 
" plunderers of Leadenhall Street, they are 
" equally detestable. I care but little Avhe- 
" ther a man walks on foot, or is drawn by 
" eight horses, or by six horses ; if his 
" luxury be supported by the plunder of 
" his country, I despise and abhor him. 
" My lords, while I had the honour of 
" serving his majesty, I never ventured to 
" look at the Treasury but from a distance : 
" it is a business I am unfit for, and to 
" which I never could have submitted. The 
" little I know of it, has not served to 
" raise my opinion of what is vulgarly called 
'' the monied interest ; I mean that blood- 
*' sucker, that muckworm, which calls him- 
*' self the friend of government; which pre- 



95 



" tends to serve this or that administration, 
" and may be purchased on the same terms 
" by any administration. Under this descrip- 
" tion I include the whole race of com- 
" missioners, jobbers, contractors, clothiers, 
*' and remitters.'"^ 



" No one, Mr. Speaker," says Mr. Pitt, 
" knows better than I do the decencies that 
" are due to the sovereign from this house; 
" but at the same time, I am not ignorant 
" of the duty I owe to my country: I scorn 
" to approach the crown with servility and 
" adulation; and I cannot countenance or 
" cherish the determined spirit breathed in 
'^ the speech, without betraying my duty to 
" my constituents. The country is almost 
" drained of men and moncy,t blood is shed 
"in profusion, and millions squandered, only 
" to purchase disasters and disgrace. I really 



* Vide Earl of Chatham's speech, in the debate on 
Falkland's Island. 

t The national debt was then £251,000,000; under the 
management of this same Mr. Pitt, it is now (1811) nearly 
£600,000,000; and now (1819) nearly oue thousand millions. 



96 



" cannot tell how the state can be retrieved^ 
" its situation is desperate, and it is this 
" circumstance alone that makes me have 
*' recourse to the expedient I am going to 
" adopt. It is not a change of ministers 
" that I look for, I do not want to see the 
" present servants of the crown out of office, 
" or the persons who sit near me appointed 
'* in their room; it is a total change of sys- 
*' tem and measures that I look for; and till 
" I can have some pledge that in this my 
" wishes shall be gratified I will oppose 
" privilege to prerogative, and vote that 
" not a shilling be given from the peo- 
" pie to the crown until they shall first 
" have received an earnest that ministers feel 
*^ a thorough conviction of past errors, and 
" are determined to do every thing to cor- 
^* rect them. When this shall be done no 
" one shall surpass me in cheerfulness in 
" granting ample supplies; but I must pause 
" before I can think of voting away the 
" money of the people with no probability 
" of national advantage, but with almost 
" moral certainty of ruin to their affairs." — 
Mr. Pitfs Speech on Friday, Nov. 30, 1781. 



97 



On the subject of the address at the 
Thatched House Tavern, which Mr. Paine 
did write, it is impossible not to quote 
' Cheetham's Life' just to exhibit his blind- 
ness and ignorance, and to show how preju- 
dice had warped this once idoliser of Mr. 
Paine. — ^* Home Tooke, perhaps the most 
*' acute man of his age, was at this meet- 
^^ ing; and as it was rumoured, Paine ob- 
" serves, that the great grammarian was the 
'^ author of the address, he takes the liberty 
" of mentioning the fact, that he wrote it 
" himself. I never heard of the rumour, 
" which was doubtless a fiction formed and 
" asserted by Paine merely to gratify his 
" egotism. No one could mistake the un- 
" couth and ungrammatical writings of one, 
" for the correct and elegant productions of 
'^ the other." But what can be expected 
from him who calls ' Common Sense ' a 
wretched work; 'The Rights of Man,' a 
miserable production; and ' Burke's Reflections,' 
a book of the proudest sagacity ? 

What can be expected from him who a few 
years before writing the above, in England 

H 



9& 



deified Mr. Paine, arid called his writings 
immortal? And who says " Fox was vehemently 
*' adverse, and in this he was right, to universal 
" suffrage f who further says of the American 
government,-— 

" I hazard nothing in remarking, unless it 
be hazardous to state the truth, that however 
excellent the system of our government may 
be in theory, the whole operation of our 
sj^stem of politics in practice, with the chiefs 
who lead the two parties, and who by hook 
or by crook govern the nation, is one of 
mystery, craft, and imposition. In these 
articles which abound amongst us, no nation 
can vie with the United States. That I hold 
to be impossible. 



" This prodigy of human intellect Paine, 

'^ or rather tliis sediment of ever-renewed 

'^ intoxication, was presented to the convention 

" on the 15th of February 1798. In this 

'' disproportioned thing, this dream of well 

'' meaning fanatics or deliberate act of cool 

" dilapidators, universal suffrage was laid 

" down to perfection. 



99 



" May not Fame's constitution of JPenri- 
^^ sylvania have been the cause of the tyranny 
^^ of Robespierre? 

'' Paine was always an advocate either of' 
" democratic anarchy or of imperial despotism^ 
" there was ho mediurri with him. 

" They talk," he said to a friend of mine, ^*^of 
'^ the tyranny of the Emperor of France. I 
" know Bonaparte, I have lived under his 
*^ government, and he allows as much freedom 
" as I wish or as any body ought to have. 
'' With Napoleon's invasion of Spain he was 
" enraptured, and of course wished him success 1 
" Could such a man be a friend of freedom P""^ 

What can be expected from that Cheetham 
whose book is filled with such matter as the 



* Of the infamous falsehood of this assertion I am a 
complete witness, being with him when he left France, and 
knowing how truly he appreciated, and disliked the cha- 
racter of Buonaparte, and his government, and how fervent 
his wishes were to leave that country, which he emphatically 
called Golgotha I 

h2 



100 



above, who was the worshipper of this very 
Paine in England, and the most violent disse- 
minator of his writings, and who in his 'Life' 
of him has such trash as the following? and 
which I know to be false. 

" When the 'Rights of Man' reached 

** Lewes, where Paine married Miss OUive, 

" the women as with one voice said, ' Od rot 

" ' im, let im come ear if he dust, an we'll 

" 'tell im what the rights of women is; we'll 

" 'toss im in a blanket, an ring im out of 

" 'Lewis wi our frying pans.' " 

Mr. Paine's life in London was a quiet 
round of philosophical leisure and enjoyment. 
It was occupied in writing, in a small epis- 
tolary correspondence, in walking about with 
me to visit different friends, occasionally loun- 
ging at coffee-houses and public places, or 
being visited by a select few. Lord Edward 
Fitzgerald; the French and American ambas- 
sadors, Mr, Sharp the engraver, Romney the 
painter, Mrs. Wolstonecroft, Joel Barlow, Mr. 
Hull, Mr. Christie, Dr. Priestly, Dr. Towers, 
Colonel Oswald, the walking Stewart, Captain 



I 



101 



Sampson Peny, iVIr. Tuffin, Mr. William Chop- 
pin, Captain De Stark, Mr. Home Tooke, &c. 
Sec. were among the number of his friends and 
acquaintance; and of course, as he was my 
inmate, the most- of my associates were fre- 
quently his. At this time he read but little, 
took his nap after dinner, and played with 
my family at some game in the evening, as 
chess, dominos, and drafts, but never at 
cards; in recitations, singing, music, &c. ; or 
passed it in conversation : the part he took 
in the latter was always enlightened, full 
of information, entertainment, and anecdote. 
Occasionally we visited enlightened friends, in- 
dulged in domestic jaunts, and recreations 
from home, frequently lounging at the White 
Bear, Piccadilly, with his old friend the walk- 
ing Stewart, and other clever travellers from 
France, and different parts of Europe and 
America. 

When by ourselves we sate very late, and 
often broke in on the morning hours, indulging 
the reciprocal interchange of affectionate and 
confidential intercourse; " Warm from the 
heart and faithful to its fires," was that inter- 



102 



course, and gave to us the ^* feast of reason j^nd 
the flow of soul." 

It was at the Mr. Christie's before men- 
tioned, at a dinner party with several of the 
above, and other characters of great interest 
and talent, that Home Tooke happened to sit 
between Mr. Paine and Madame D'Eon ; for 
this character was, at this time, indisputably 
feminine. Tooke, whose wit and brilliant 
conversation was ever abundant, looking oil 
each side of him, said, ^' 1 am now in the 
*^ most extraordinary situation in which ever 
'' man was placed. On the left of me sits 
'' a gentleman, who, brought up in obscurity, 
'' has proved himself the greatest political 
" writer in the world, and has made more 
'' noise in it, and excited more attention and 
" obtained more fame, than any man ever did. 
^' On the right of me sits a lady, who ha$ 
'' been employed in public situations at diffe- 
" rent courts ; who had high rank in the army, 
" was greatly skilled in horsemanship, who has 
" fought several duels, and at the small sword 
" had no equal ; who for fifty years past, all 
^^ Europe has recognised in the character and 



103 



*^ dress of a gentleman."— *' Ah!" replied Ma- 
dame D'Eon, " these are very extraordinary 
" things, indeed, Monsieur Tooke, and proves 
" you did not know what was at the bottona." 

If this same Chevalier D'Eoi) had been 
lost at sea, burnt, or had in any way left the 
world, unknown and unnoticed, all Europe 
would have believed he was a woman, as really 
as any creed in their religion; and yet this 
was not so. In 1810, soon after his death, 
I saw and examined this mvsterious character: 
and that he was incontestibly a man, a che- 
valier, ai^d not a madarae, is mo^t certain. So 
that what every body says is n,ot always true ; 
and this is an instance to be added to many 
thousands of the truth of the sailor's adage, 
"Seeing is believing;" and should warn us 
not to give credence hastily to any thing that 
does not fall under our own immediate expe- 
rience, knowledge, and observation. 

The second part of * Eights of Man,' which 
completed the celebrity of its author, and 
placed him at the head of political writers, was 
pju Wished in February 1792. Never had any 



104 



work so rapid and extensive a sale ; and it has 
been calculated that near a million and a half 
of copies wfere printed and published in Eng- 
land. 

From this time Mr. Paine generally resided 
in London, and principally with me, till the 
12th of September 1792, when he sailed for 
France with Mr. Achilles Audibei t, who came 
express from the French convention to my 
house to request his personal assistance in their 
deliberations. 

On his arrival at Calais a public dinner 
was provided, a royal salute was fired from 
the battery, the troops were drawn out, and 
there was a general rejoicing throughout the 
town. He has often been heard to remark 
that the proudest moment of his life was that 
in which, on this occasion, he set foot upon 
the Gallic shore. 

In his own country he had been infamously 
treated, and at the time of his quitting Dover 
most rudely dealt with both by the officers 
v/ho ransacked his trunks, and a set of hire- 



105 



lings who were employed to hiss, hoot, and 
maltreat, and it is strongly suspected, to de- 
stroy him. 

It deprest him to think that his endeavours 
to cleanse the Augaean stable of corruption 
in England should liave been so little under- 
stood, or so ill appreciated as to subject him 
to such ignominious, such cowardly treatment. 
Yet seven hours after this those very endea- 
vours obtained him an honourable reception in 
France, and on his landing he was respectfully 
escorted, amidst the loud plaudits of the mul- 
titude, to the house of his friend Mr. Audi- 
bert, the chief magistrate of the place, where 
he was visited b}^ the commandant and all 
the municipal officers in form, who after- 
wards gave him a sumptuous entertainment 
in the town hall. 

The same honour was also paid him on 
his departure for Paris.* 



* The reader is referred to Brissot's paper * Le Patriot 
Franjois/ and * Le Journal de Gorsas/ for minute parti- 



10(3 



About the time of his arrival at Paris 
the national convention beiran to divide 
itself into factions; the king's friends had 
been completely subdued by the suppression 
of the Feuillans, the affair of the 10th of 
August, and the massacre of the 2nd and 
3rd of September ; while the jacobins who 
had been hitherto considered as the patriotic 
party, became in their turns divided into 
different cabals, some of them w^ishing a 
federative government, others, the enrages, 
desiring the death of the king and of all 
allied to the nobility; but none of thos@ 
y/cre republicans. 

Those few deputies who had just ideas 
of a commonwealth, and whose leader was 
Paine, did not belong to the jacobin club. 

I mention this, because Mr. Paine took 



culars of Mr. Paine's introduction to the president of the 
convention, to the ministers, and different committees; his 
being appointed a deputy, and a^meraber of the committee 
of constitution, &c. &c. &c. 



107 



infinite trouble to instill into their minds the 
diiference between liberty and licentiousness, 
and the danger to the peace, good order, 
and well-doing of society, that must arise 
from letting the latter encroach on the pre- 
rogatives of the former. 

He laboured incessantly to preserve the 
life of the king, and he succeeded in mak- 
ing some converts to his opinions on this 
subject; and his life would have been saved 
but for Barrere, who having been appointed 
by Robespierre to an office he was ambi- 
tious of obtaining, and certainly very fit for, 
his influence brought with it forty votes; so 
early was corruption introduced into this 
assembly. For Calais, Mr. Paine was re- 
turned deputy to the convention; he was 
elected as well for Versailles, but as the 
former town first did him the honour he 
became its representative. He was extremely 
desirous and expected to be appointed one 
of the deputies to Holland ; a circumstance 
that probably would have taken place had 
not the committee of constitution delayed 
so long the production of the new form 



108 



that the jacobins anticipated them, and pub^ 
lished proposals for a new constitution before 
the committee. 

This delay was owing to the jealousy 
of Condorcet who had written the preface, 
part of which some of the members 
thought should have been in the body of 
the work. 

Brissot and the whole party of the Ge- 
rondites lost ground daily after this; and 
with them died away all that was national, 
just, and humane: they were however highly 
to blame for their want of energy. 

In the beginning of April 1793, the 
convention received the letter from Dumou- 
rier that put all France in a panic: in this 
letter he mentioned the confidence the army 
had in him, and his intention of marching 
to Paris to restore to France her constitu- 
tional king: this had the strongest effect, as 
it was accompanied by an address from the 
prince of Coburg, in which he agreed to 
co-operate with Dumourier, 



109 



Mr. Paine, who never considered the vast 
difference between the circumstances of* the 
two countries, France and America, suggested 
an idea that Dumourier might be brought 
about by appointing certain deputies to wait 
on him coolly and dispassionately, to hear 
his grievances, and armed with powers to re- 
dress them. 

On this subject he addressed a letter to 
the convention, in which he instanced the 
case of an American general who receded 
with the army under his command in con- 
sequence of his being dissatisfied with the 
proceedings of congress. The congress were 
panic struck by this event, and gave up all 
for lost; but when the first impression of 
alarm subsided they sent a deputation from 
their own body to the general, who with 
his staff gave them the meeting; and thus 
matters were again reinstated. But there 
was too much impetuosity and faction in the 
French convention to admit of such tem- 
perate proceedings. 

Mr. Paine, however, had written the letter. 



110 



and was going to Brissot's in order to meet 
Barrere for the purpose of proposing an ad-^ 
justrnent, when he met a friend who had 
that moment left the convention, who in- 
formed him that a decree had been past 
offering one hundred thousand crowns for 
Dumourier's head, and . another making it 
high treason to propose any thing in his 
favour. 

What the consequence of IVIr. Paine's pro-* 
ject might have been I do not know, but 
the offer of the convention made hundreds 
of desperate characters leave Paris, as speedily 
as possible, in hopes of the proffered reward; 
it detached the affection of the soldiers from 
their general, and made them go over to 
the enemy. 

Towards the close of 1792 his * Letter to 
the Addressers' was published, which was 
sought after with the same avidity as his 
other productions. 

Of this letter, which, with many other 
things, he wrote at my house, I have the 



Ill 



tji'ighial manuscript; and the table on whicli 
they were written is still carefully preserved 
by me : it has a brass plate in the centre 
with this inscription placed there by my di- 
rection on his quitting England — 



llijs Plate 

is inscribed by 

^Thomas CI JO Rickman/ 

in remembrance 

of his dear friend 

Thomas Paine. 

who on this Table 




, The ' Letter to the Addressers' possesses all 
Mr. Paine's usual strength of reasoning, and 
abounds also in the finest strokes of genuine 
satire, wit, and humour. About this time 
a prosecution took place against the publish- 
ers of ' Plights of Man.' 



How this was managed, and Mr. Paine's 



112 



opinion of it, will be best understood by the 
following letter never before published. 

" To Sir Archibald Macdonald, 

*^ Attorney General. 
" Sir, 

*^ Though I have some reasons for 
believing that you were not the original 
promoter or encourager of the prosecution 
commenced against the work entitled ' Rights 
of Man,' either as that prosecution is in- 
tended to effect the author, the publisher, 
or the public; yet as you appear the official 
person therein, I address this letter to you, 
not as Sir Archibald Macdonald, but as at- 
torney general. 

" You began by a prosecution against 
the publisher Jordan, and the reason assigned 
by Mr. Secretary Dundas, in the House of 
Commons in the debate on the proclamation. 
May 25, for taking that measure, was, he 
said, because Mr. Paine could not be found, 
or words to that effect. Mr. Paine, sir, so 
far from secreting himself, never went a step 
out of his way, nor in the least instance varied 



113 



from his usual conduct, to avoid any mea- 
sure you might choose to adopt with respect 
to him. It is on the purity of his heart, 
and the universal utihty of the principles 
and plans which his writings contain, that 
he rests the issue ; and he will not disho- 
nour it by any kind of subterfuge. The 
apartments wliich he occupied at the time 
of writing the work last winter he has con- 
tinued to occupy to the present hour, and 
the solicitors to the prosecution knew where 
to find him ; of which there is a proof in 
their own office as far back as the 21st of 
May, and also in the office of my own 
attorney. 

" But admitting, for the sake of the case, 

that the reason for proceeding against the 

publisher was, as Mr. Dundas stated, that 

Mr. Paine could not be found, that reason 
can now exist no longer. 

" The instant that I was informed that an 
information was preparing to be filed against 
me as the author of I believe one of the most 



Hi 



useful and benevoknt books ever offered t6 
mankind, I directed my attorney to put ir^ 
an appearance ; and as I shall meet the prose- 
cution fully and fairly and with a good and 
upright conscience, I have a right to expect 
that no act of littleness will be made use of 
on the part of the prosecution towards influ- 
encing the future issue with respect to the 
author. This expression may perhaps appear 
obscure to you, but I am in the possession of 
some matters which serve to shew that the 
action agamst the publisher is not intended 
to be a real action. If therefore any persons 
concerned on the prosecution have found their 
cause so weak as to make it appear convenient 
to them to enter into a negociation with the 
publisher, whether for the purpose of his sub- 
mitting to a verdict, and to make use of the 
verdict so obtained as a circumstance, by way 
of precedent, on a future trial against myself; 
or for any other purpose not fully made known 
to me ; if, I say, I have cause to suspect this 
to be the case I shall most certainly withdraw 
the defence I should otherwise have made or 
promoted on his (the publisher's) behalf, and 
leave the negociators to tjiemselveS; and 



^hall reserve the whole of the defence fot tte 
real trial. 

" But, Sir, for the purpose of eonducting 
this matter with at least that appearance of 
fairness and openness that shall justify itself 
before the public, whose cause it really is 
(for it is the right of public discussion and in- 
vestigation that is questioned), I have to pro- 
pose to you to cease the prosecution against 
the publisher ; and as the reason or pretext 
can no longer exist for continuing it against 
him because Mr. Paine could not be found, 
that you would direct the whole process against 
me, with whom the prosecuting party will 
not find it possible to enter into any private 
negociation. 

** I will do the cause full justice, as well for 
the sake of the nation, as for my own repu- 
tation. 

" Another reason for discontinuing the pro- 
Cess against the publisher is, because it can 
amount to nothing. First, because a jury in 
London cannot decide upon the fact of pub*^ 

i2 



116 



lisliiiig beyoiKl die limits of the jurisdiction of 
London, and therefore the work may be re- 
published over and over again in every county 
in the nation, and every case must have a 
separate process; and by the time that three 
or four hundred prosecutions have been had 
the eyes of the nation will then be fully open 
to see that the work in question contains a 
plan the best calculated to root out all the 
abuses of government, and to lessen the taxes 
of the nation upwards of six millions annu- 
ally, 

'^ Secondly, because though the gentlemen 
of London may be very expert in understanding 
their particular professions and occupations, and 
how to make business contracts with govern- 
ments beneficial to themselves as individuals^ 
the rest of the nation may not be disposed to 
consider them sufficiently qualified nor autho- 
rised to determine for the whole nation on 
plans of reforms, and on systems and princi- 
ples of government. This would be in effect 
to erect a jury into a national convention, 
instead of electing a convention, and to 
lay a precedent for the probable tyranny of 



117 



juries, under the pretence of supporting their 
rights. 

** That the possibility always exists of pack- 
ing juries will not be denied; and therefore 
in all cases where government is the prosecutor, 
more especially in those where the right of 
public discussion and investigation of prin- 
ciples and systems of government is attempted 
to be suppressed by a verdict, or in those 
where the object of the work that is prosecuted 
is the reform of abuse, and the abolition of 
sinecure places and pensions, in all these cases 
the verdict of a jury will itself become a 
subject of discussion; and therefore it furnishes 
an additional reason for discontinuing the 
prosecution against the publisher, more espe- 
cially as it is not a secret that there has been 
a negociation with him for secret purposes, 
and for proceeding against me only. I shall 
make a much stronger defence than what I 
believe the treasury solicitor's agreement with 
him will permit him to do. 

" I believe that Mr. Burke, finding himself 
defeated, and not being able to make any 



118 



answer to the * Rights of Man,' has been one 
of the promoters of this prosecution ; and I 
shall return the compliment to him by shewing, 
in a future publication, that he has been a 
masked pensioner at .£1500 per aniium for 
about ten years. 

■' Thus it is that the public money i$ 
wasted, and the dread of public investigation 



is produced. 



" To 
Sir A. Macdonald; 
att.-gen. 



'^ I am, Sir, 
'^ Your obedient humble servant, 
" Thomas Paine, 



This letter was written previous to Mr, 
Paine's quitting England, and is, the writer 
believes, the only letter he ever wrote to 
Sir Archibald Macdonald. 



It is the more necessary to state this as 
a letter said to be Mr. Paine's was read on 
his trial; a letter calculated to make much 



119 



/against hi in, and which was no doubt, as 
Mr. Erskine asserted, a forged one. This 
letter, even if genuine, was not evidence, 
was not charged in the information, and 
ought not to have made any part in the 
4:rial 

Of this letter Mr. Erskine, now Lord 
Erskine, thus remarked on Mr. Paine's 
.trial :-^ 

^' I consider that letter and indeed have 
^' always heard it treated as a forgery, con- 
" trived to injure the merits of the cause, 
" and to embarrass me personally in its de- 
" fence: I have a right so to consider it, 
'' because it is unsupported by any thing 
'' similar at an earlier period. The defen- 
"^ danfs whole deportment previous to the 
" publication has been wholly unexeeption- 
" able : he properly desired to be given up 
'* as the author of the book if any enquiry 
" should take place concerning it; and he 
" is not affected in evidence, directly or in- 
" directly, with any illegal or suspicious 
^' conduct, not even with uttering an indis- 



120 



^^ creet or taunting expression, nor with any 
'^ one matter or thing inconsistent with the 
^J best subject in England. 

" His opinions, indeed, were adverse to our 
" system, but I maintain that opinion is 
" free, and that conduct alone is amenable to 
'^ the law."^ As the proclamation which 
gave rise to the ' Letter to the Addressers' is a 
curious document, and evinces the temper 
of the powers that were of that day, it is for 
the entertainment of the reader here in- 
jserted ; — 

*' The London Gazette, published by au- 
thority, from Saturday, May 19, to Tuesday, 

May 22. 



^- By the King, a Proclamation. 
*^ Whereas divers wicked and seditious wri- 



^* George R 



• The reader is referred to Mr. Erskine's speech on 
Mr. Paine's trial, as a most luminous exhibition of just 
reasoning, sound argument, interesting quotations, and 
manly eloquence. 



121 



tings have been printed, published, and indus- 
triously dispersed, tending to excite tumult 
and disorder, by endeavouring to raise ground- 
less jealousies and discontents in the minds 
of our faithful and loving subjects respecting 
the laws and happy constitution of govern- 
ment, civil and rehgious, established in this 
kingdom, and endeavouring to viUfy, and 
bring into contempt, the wise and whole- 
some provisions made at the time of the 
glorious revolution, and since strengthened 
and confirmed by subsequent laws for 
the preservation and security of the rights 
and liberties of our faithful and iovino- sub- 
jects: and whereas divers writings have also 
been printed, pu}}lished, and industriously dis- 
persed, recommending the said wdcked and 
seditious publications to the attention of all 
our faithful and loving subjects: and whereas 
we have also reason to believe that corres- 
pondencies have been entered into with sun- 
dry persons in foreign parts with a view to 
forward the criminal and wicked purposes 
above mentioned : and whereas the wealth, 
happiness and prosperity of this kingdom do, 
under divine providence, chiefly depend upon 



12-2 



a due submission to the laws, a just confi- 
dence in the integrity and wisdom of parlia- 
ment, and a continuance of that zealous 
attachment to that government and constitu- 
tion of the kingdom wdiich has ever pre- 
vailed in the minds of the people thereof: 
and w^hereas there is nothing which we so 
so earnestly desire as to secure the public 
peace and prosperity, and to preserve to all our 
loving subjects the full enjoyment of their 
rights and liberties, both religious and civil ; 
We, therefore, being resolved, as far as in 
lis lies, to repress the wicked and seditious 
practices aforesaid, and to deter all persons 
from following so pernicious an example, have 
thought fit, by the advice of our privy council, 
to issue this our Royal Proclamation, solemnly 
warning all our loving subjects, as they tender 
their own happiness, and that of their poste- 
rity, to guard against all such attempts, which 
aim at the subversion of all regular government 
within this kingdom, and which are inconsist- 
ent with the peace and order of society : and 
earnestly exhorting them at all times, and to the 
utmost of their power, to avoid and discourage 
* all proceedings, tending to produce tumults and 



123 



liots : and we do strictly charge and command 
all our magistrates in and throughout our king- 
dom of Great Britain, that they do make dili- 
gent inquiry, in order to discover the authors 
and printers of such wicked and seditious wri- 
tings as aforesaid, and all others who shall dis- 
perse the same : and we do further charge 
and command all our sheriffs, justices of the 
peace, chief magistrates in our cities, bo- 
roughs, and corporations, and all other our 
officers and magistrates throughout our king- 
dom of Great Britain, that they do, in their 
several and respective stations, take the most 
immediate and effectual care to suppress and 
prevent all riots, tumults and other disorders, 
which may be attempted to be raised or 
made by any person or persons, which, o^n 
whatever pretext they may be grounded, are 
not only contrary to law, but dangerous to 
the most important interests of this kingdom : 
and we do further require and command all 
and every our magistrates aforesaid that they 
do from time to time transmit to one of 
our principal secretaries of state due and full 
information of such persons as shall be found 
offending as aforesaid, or in any degree aid- 



124 



ing or abetting therein: it being our deter- 
mination, for the preservation of the peace 
and happiness of our faithful and loving sub- 
jects, to carry the laws vigorously into exe- 
cution against such offenders as aforesaid. — ■ 
Given at our Court at the Queen's House, 
the twenty-first day of May, One thou- 
sand .seven hundred and ninety- two, in the 
thirty-second year of our reign. ~ God save 
the king." 

Soon after this, his excellent Letters to 
Lord Onslow, to Mr. Dundas, and the Sheriff 
of Sussex were published. 

Mr. Paine's trial for the second part of 
^ Eights of Man' took place on the 18th of 
December 1792, and he being found guilty 
the booksellers and publishers who were taken 
up and imprisoned previously to this trial 
forebore to stand one themselves, and suf- 
fered judgment to go by default; for which 
they received the sentence of three years im- 
prisonment each. Of these booksellers and 
publishers I was one, but by flying to 
France I eluded tills merciful sentence. 



125 



Oil the subject of these prosecutions I 
Wrote to Mr. Fox, whom I well knew; and 
my intimate friend for years, Lord Stanhope, 
as I was myself the subject of two of them, 
and was well acquainted with the party factions 
of the day, and the iniquitous intrigues of 
the opposing leaders, in and out of office; 
for the writings of Mr. Paine which were 
as broad as the universe, and having nothing 
to do with impure elections and auger-hole 
politics, gave equal offence to all sides. 

In the course of these letters which are 
still extant, it was impossible not to dwell 
on the absurdity of trial by jury in matters 
of opinion, and the folly of any body of 
men deciding for others in science and spe- 
culative discussion, in politics and religion. 
Is it not applying the institution of juries to 
purposes for which they were not intendedj, 
to set up twelve men to judge and deter- 
mine for a whole nation on matters that 
relate to systems and principles of govern- 
ment? A matter of fact may be cognisable 
by a jury, and certainly ascertained with 
respect to ofi^nces against common law and 



126 



ill the ordinary inCercourses of society; hilt 
oil matters of political opiiiion, of taste, of 
metaphysical enquiry, and of religious belief, 
every one must be left to decide as his en- 
quiries, his experience, and his conviction 
impel him. 

If the aim of power in every country 
and on every doctrine could have enforced 
its tyranny, almost all we now possess, and 
that is valuable, would have been destroyed; 
and if all the governments and factions 
that have made the world miserable could 
have had their Avay, every thing desirable 
In art, science, philosophy, literature, poli- 
tics, and religion, would have been by 
turns obliterated ; and the Bible, the Tes- 
tament, the AicoraUj the writings of Locke, 
Erasmus Helvetius, Mercier, Milton, Shak- 
speare, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Swift, Bo- 
langer, Hume, Penn, Tucker, Paine, Ba- 
con, Bolingbrqke, and of thousands of others 
on all sides, would have been burnt; nor 
would there be a printing press in the world. 

It has happened happily for many years 



m 



f)ast, thanks to the art of printing and the 
meaiis adopted to crush the circulation of 
knowledge, that the very modes employed 
to accomplish this end have not only proved 
abortive, but have given wings to truth, 
and diffused it ilito every corner of the uni-* 
verse. The publication of trials containing quo- 
tations from the vv^orks to be put down have 
disseminated their contents infinitely wilder 
than they would else have reached, and have 
excited enquiries that w^ould otherwise have 
lain dormant. 

So ludicrously did this strike Mr. Paine 
that his frequent toast was, '^ The best way 
of advertising good books, — by prosecution." 

As the attorney-general's attacks upon 
prosecuted w^orks of a clever and profound 
description, and the judges' charges upon them 
contain nothing like argument or refutation, 
but follow up the criminating and absurd 
language of the indictment or ex-of¥icio in- 
formation,* and breathe only declamation and 



The reader is referred to t!iese documents as well 



128 



ignorant abuse, they by their weakness ex- 
pose the cause they espouse, and strengthen 
the truths they affect to destroy. 

I shall close these observations by quoting- 
two old and good-humoured lines. 

Treason does never prosper — what's the reason 1 
When it prospers — it is never treason ! 

This trial of Mr. Paine, and these sen- 
tences, subverted of course the wery ends 
they were intended to effect. 

Mr. Paine Vv^as acknowledged deputy for 
Calais, the 2!st of September, 1792. In 
France, during the early part of the revolu- 
tion, his time v/as almost wholly occupied as 
a deputy of the convention and as a mem- 



worth his notice, and as a proof of the truth of these 
observations: for instance, these iuformations state that 
Thomas Paine, being a wicked, malicious, seditious, and 
evil disposed person, hath, with force of arms, and most 
wicked cunning, written aud published a certain false, 
scandalous, malicious, and seditious libel; in one part 
thereof to the tenor aud efl'ect following, that is to say — 
See. &c. 



129 



ber of the committee of constitution. His 
company was now coveted and sought after 
universally among every description of people, 
and by many who for some reasons never 
chose to avow it. With the Earl of Lauder- 
dale, and Dr. Moore, whose company he was 
fond of, he dined every Friday, till Lord 
Gower's departure made it necessary for them 
to quit France, which was early in 1793. 

About this period he removed from White's 
Hotel to one near the Rue de Richelieu, where 
he was so plagued and interrupted by numerous 
visitors, and sometimes by adventurers, that 
in order to have some time to himself he 
appropriated two mornings in a week for 
his levee days.* To this indeed he was 



* Among these adventurers was a person who called 
himself Major Lisle : Mr. Paine was at breakfast when he 
was announced; he stated himself to be lately arrived from 
Ireland ; he was drest in the Irish uniform, and wore a 
green cockade ; he appeared to be a well informed man, 
and was gentlemanly in his manners, but extremely voluble. 
He ran over the number of sieges and battles he had been 
at, and ended with professing a zealous desire to serve the 
republic, wishing Mr. Paine to give him a letter of recora- 

K 



130 



extremely averse, from the fuss and formality 
attending it, but he was nevertheless obliged 
to adopt it. 

Annoyed and disconcerted with a life so 
contrary to his wishes and habits, and so 
inimical to his views, he retired to the Faux- 
bourg St. Dennis, where he occupied part of 
the hotel that Madame de Pompadour once 
resided iru 

Here was a good garden well laid out^ 
and here too our mutual friend Mr. Choppin 
occupied apartments: at this residence, which 
for a town one was very quiet, he lived a 
life of retirement and philosophical ease, while 
it was believed he was gone into the country 



mendation to the minister at war. Mr. Paine was extremely 
observing, shrewd, and cautious ; he treated him with 
hospitality and politeness, and enquired after some of the 
leading characters in Ireland, with whom he found the 
major not at all acquainted ; he then recommended him to 
take the credentials of his services to the military com- 
mittee, but declined every importunity to interfere himself. 
This adventurer turned out afterwards to be the notorious 
Major Semple. 



131 



for his health, which by this time indeed 
was much impaired by intense application to 
business, and by the anxious solicitude he felt 
for the welfare of public affairs. 

Here with a chosen few he unbent him- 
self; among whom were Brissot, the Marquis 
de Chatelet le Roi of the gallerie de honore, 
and an old friend of Dr. Franklin's, Banzai, 
and sometimes General Miranda. His English 
associates were Christie and family, Mrs. 
Wolstonecraft, Mr. and Mrs. Stone, &c. 
Amoifg his American friends were Capt. Imlay, 
Joel Barlow, &c. &c. to these parties the French 
inmates were generally invited. 

It was about this time a gentleman at 
Paris thus writes of him to his friend : ■— 
" An English lady of our acquaintance, 
" not less remarkable for her talents than for 
" her elegance of manners, entreated me to 
" contrive that she might have an interview 
" with Mr. Paine. In consequence of this 
" I invited him to dinner on a day when 
" we were to be favored with her company. 

K 2 



132 



** For above four hours he kept every 
** one in astonishment and admiration of his 
" memory, bis keen observation of men and 
*^ manners, his numberless anecdotes of the 
*' American Indians, of the American war, of 
** Franklin, Washmgton, and even of his 
" Majesty, of whom he told several curious 
** facts of humour , and benevolence. His 
" remarks on genius and taste can never be 
" forgotten by those present." 

Joel Barlow was many years Mr. Paine'i 
intimate friend, and it was from Mr. Paine 
he derived much of the great knowledge 
and acuteness of talent he possessed. Joel 
Barlow was a great philosopher, and a great 
poet ; but there are spots in the sun, and 
1 instance tbe following littleness in his con- 
duct as a warning, and to prove how much 
of honest fame and character is lost by any 
thing like tergiversation. Joel Barlow has 
omitted the name of Mr. Paine in his very 
fine poem ^ The Columbiad ;' a name essen- 
tial to the work as the principal founder of 
the American republic and of the happiness 
of its citizens. Omitting the name of Mr> 



133 



Paine in the history of America, and where 
the amelioration of the human race is so 
much concernedj is like omitting the name 
of Newton in writing the history of his phi- 
losophy, or that of God Avhen creation is 
the suhject; yet this, Joel Barlow has done, 
and done so lest the name of Paine com- 
bined with his theological opinions should 
injure the sale of the poem. — Mean and un- 
handsome conduct ! 

To remedy this omission, tho not in the 
fine style of Barlow, the following lines are 
suggested to be placed at the close of the 
425th line in the 5th book, page 157 of his 
Columbiad: — - 



A man who honor'd Albion by his birth, 

The wisest, brightest, hurablest son of earth; 

A man, in every sense that word can mean. 

Now started angel-like upon the scene. 

Drew forth his pen of reason, truth, and fire. 

The land to animate, the troops inspire; 

And called that independent spirit forth. 

Which gives all bliss to man, and constitutes his worth. 

'T was he suggested first, 'twas he who plann'd 
A separation from the mother land ; 



134 

His * Common Sense' his * Crisis' led the way, 
To great Columbia's happy perfect day. 
And all she has of good or ever may ! — 



As Euclid clear his various writings shone. 

His pen inspired by glorious truth alone. 

O'er all the earth diffusing light and life. 

Subduing error, ignorance, and strife; 

Raised man to just pursuits, to thinking right, 

And yet will free the world from woe and falsehood's night; 

To this immortal man, to Paine 'twas given. 

To metamorphose earth from hell to heaven. 

He usually rose about seven, breakfasted 
with his friend Choppin, Johnson, and two 
or three other Englishmen, and a Monsieur 
La Borde, who had been an officer in the 
ci-devant garde dii corps, an intolerable aris- 
tocrat, but whose skill in mechanics and geo- 
metry brought on a friendship between him 
and Paine: for the undaunted and distin- 
guished ability and firmness with which he 
ever defended his own opinions when contro- 
verted, do not leflect higher honour upon 
him than that unboimded liberality towards the 
opinions of others which constituted such a 
prominent feature in his character, and 
which never suffered mere difference of sen- 
timent, whether political or religious, to 



135 



interrupt the harmonious intercourse of friend- 
ship, or impede the interchanges of know- 
ledge and information. 

After breakfast he usually strayed an hour 
ot two in the garden, where he one morning 
pointed out the kind of spider whose web 
furnished him with the first idea of constructing 
his iron bridge; a fine model of which, in 
mahogany, is preserved at Paris. 

The little happy circle who lived with him 
here will ever remember these days with de- 
light : with these select friends he would talk 
of his boyish days, play at chess, whist, piquet, 
or cribbage, and enliven the moments by many 
interesting anecdotes : with these he would 
play at marbles, scotch hops, battledores, &c. 
on the broad and fine gravel walk at the upper 
end of the garden, and then retire to his bou- 
doir, where he was up to his knees in letters 
and papers of various descriptions. Here he 
remained till dinner time ; and unless he vi- 
sited Brissot's family, or some particular friend 
in the evening, which was his frequent custom, 
he joined again the society of his favorites 



136 



and fellow-boarders, with whom his conver- 
sation was often witty and cheerful, always 
acute and improving, but never frivolous. 

Incorrupt, strait forward, and sincere, he 
pursued his political course in France, as every 
where else, let the government or clamor or 
faction of the day be what it might, with 
firmness, with clearness, and without a " sha- 
dow of turning." 

In all Mr. Paine's enquiries and conver- 
sations he evinced the strongest attachment to 
the investigation of truth, and was always for 
sroins: to the fountain head for information. 
He often lamented we had no good history of 
America, and that the letters written by Co- 
lumbus, the early navigators, and others, to 
the Spanish court, were inaccessible, and that 
many valuable documents, collected by Philip 
the lid, and deposited with the national 
archives at Simania, had not yet been pro- 
mulgated. He used to speak highly of the 
sentimental parts of RaynaVs History. 

It is not intended to enter into an account 



137 



of the French revolution, its progress, the dif- 
ferent colors it took and aspects it assumed. 
The history of this most important event 
may be found at large detailed by French 
writers as well as those of other nations, and 
the world is left to judge of it. 

It is unfortunate for mankind that Mr. 
Paine, by imprisonment and the loss of his 
invaluable papers, was prevented giving the 
best, most candid and philosophical account of 
these times. These papers contained the his- 
tory of the French revolution, and were no 
doubt a most correct, discriminating, and en- 
lightened detail of the events of that important 
era. For these papers the historlau Gibbon 
sent to France, and made repeated application, 
upon a conviction that they would be impartial, 
profound, and philosophical documents. 

It is well known that Mr. Paine always 
lamented the turn affairs took in France, and 
grieved at the period we are now adverting 
to, when corrupt influence was rapidly infecting 
every department of the state. He saw the 
jealousies and animosities that w^ere breedino-, 



isa 



and that a turbulent faction was forming: 
among the people that would first enslave 
and ultimately overwhelm even the convention 
itself 

Mr. Paine's opinion upon this subject was 
always the same, and in 1804 he thus speaks 
it: ** With respect to the revolution, it was 
** begun by good nien, on good principles, and 
** I have ever believed it would have gone 
" on so had not the provocative interference 
" of foreign powers distracted it into madness 
'^ and sown jealousies among the leaders. The 
*' people of England have now two revolutions, 
** the American and the French, before them. 
** Their own wisdom will direct them what to 
" choose and what to avoid; and in every thing 
** which relates to their happiness, combined 
*' with the common good of mankind, I wish 
" them honour and success." 

Mr. Paine's memorable speech against the 
death of the king, is, or ought to be, in every 
body's hands. It was as follows : 

^' Citizen President: My hatred and abhor- 



139 



rence of absolute monarchy are sufficiently 
known ; they originate in principles of reason 
and conviction, nor, except with life, can 
they ever be extirpated ; but my compassion for 
the unfortunate, whether friend or enemy, is 
equally lively and sincere. 

" I voted that Louis should be tried, 
because it was necessary to afford proofs to 
the world of the perfidy, corruption, and abo- 
mination of the French government. 

" The infinity of evidence that has been 
produced exposes them in the most glaring 
and hideous colours. 

" Nevertheless I am inclined to believe that 
if Louis Capet had been born in an obscure 
condition, had he lived within the circle of an 
amiable and respectable neighbourhood, at 
liberty to practise the duties of domestic life 
had he been tlius situated I cannot believe that 
he would have shewn himself destitute of social 
virtues ; we are, in a moment of fermentation 
like this, naturally little indulgent to his vices, 
or rather to tliose of his government ; we regard 



140 



them with additional horror and indignation ; 
not that they are more heinous than those of his 
predecessors, but because our eyt*s are now open, 
and the veil of dehision at length withdrawn; 
yet the lamentable degraded state to which he 
is actually reduced is surely far less imputable 
to him than to the constituent assembly which, 
of its own authority, without consent or advice 
of the people, restored him to the throne. 

" I was present at the time of the flight 
or abdication of Louis XVI, and w4ien he was 
taken and brought back. The proposal of 
restoring to him the supreme power struck me 
with amazement; and although at that time I 
was not a citizen, yet as a citizen of the world 
I employed all the eiforts that depended on me 
to prevent it. 

" A small society, composed only of five 
persons, two of whom are now members of the 
convention, took at that time the name of the 
Republican Club (Soci6t6 Republicaine). This 
society opposed the restoration of Louis, not so 
much on account of his personal offences, as in 
order to overthrow monarchy, and to erect on 



141 



its ruins the republican system and an equal 
representation. ; , 

" With this design I traced out in the 
English language certain propositions which 
were translated, with some trifling alteration, 
and signed by Achilles Duchelclet, lieutenant- 
general in the army of the French republic, 
and at that time one of the five members which 
composed our little party ; the law requiring the 
signature of a citizen at the bottom of each 
printed paper. 

** The paper was indignantly torn by 
Malonet, and brought forth in this very room 
as an article of accusation against the person 
who had signed it, the author, and their adhe- 
rents ; but such is the revolution of events that 
this paper is now revived, and brought forth 
for a very opposite purpose. 

*' To remind the nation of the error of that 
unfortunate day, that fatal error of not having 
then banished Louis XVI from its bosom, the 
paper in question was conceived in the fol- 
lowing terms; and I bring it forward this day 



142 



to plead in favor of his exile preferably to his 
death. 

" * Brethren, and fellow Citizens : The serene 

* tranquillity^ the mutual confidence which pre- 
' vailed amongst us during: the time of the late 
' king's escape, the indifference with which w^e 
' beheld him return, are unequivocal proofs that 

* the absence of the king is more desirable than 

* his presence, and that he is not only a political 
' superfluity but a grievous burthen pressing hard 
' on the whole nation. 

" ^ Let us not be imposed on by sophisms : all 

* that concerns this man is reduced to four points. 
' He has abdicated the throne in having fled from 
' his post. Abdication and desertion are not 

* characterized by length of absence, but by 
'the single act of flight. In the present in- 
' stance the act is every thing, and the time 
' nothing. 



" ' The nation can never give back its 
* confidence to a man who, false to his trust, 
' perjured to his oath, conspires a clandestine 
' flight, obtains a fraudulent passport, conceals 



143 



' a kino: of France under the diso;uise of a 

* valet, directs his course towards a frontier 

* covered with traitors and deserters, and evi- 

* dently meditates a return into our country 

* with a force capable of imposing his own 
' despotic laws. Ought his flight to be con- 
' sidered as his own act, or the act of those who 
' fled with him? Was it a spontaneous resolution 
' of his own, or was it inspired into him 
' by others ? The alternative is immaterial : 
' whether fool or hypocrite, idiot or trai- 

* tor, he has proved himself equally un- 

* worthy of the vast and important functions 

* that had been delegated to him. 

^' ' In every sense that the question can be 

* considered the reciprocal obligations which 
' subsisted between us are dissolved. He holds 
' no longer authority ; we owe him no longer 
'obedience; we see in him no more than an 
'indifferent person; we can regard him only 
^ as Louis Capet 

*' ' The history of France presents little 
' else than a long series cf public calamity 

* which takes its source from the vices of her 



U4 



< kings : we have been the wretched victims 
^ that have never ceased to suffer either for 

* them or by them. The cataiogiie of their 
' oppressions was complete, but to complete 
' the sum of their crimes treason was yet 
'wanting; now the only vacancy is filled up, 
' the dreadful list is full; the system is ex- 
' hausted ; there are no remaining errors for 
' them to commit, their reign is consequently 
' at an end. 

*' ' As to the personal safety of Mr. Louis 

* Capet, it is so much the more confirmed, as 
' France will not stop to degrade herself by a 
^ spirit of revenge against a wretch who has 

* dishonored himself. In defending a just and 
' glorious cause it is not possible to degrade it; 
' and the universal tranquillity which prevails is 
' an undeniable proof that a free people know 
' how to respect themselves.' 

" Having thus explained the principles and 
exertions of the republicans at that fatal pe- 
riod when Louis was reinstated in full pos- 
session of the executive power which by his 
flight had been suspended, I return to the 



145 



subject, and to the deplorable condition in 
which the man is now actually involved. 
What was neglected at the time of which 
I have been speaking has been since brought 
about by the force of necessity. 

** The wilful treacherous defects in the 
former constitution have been brought to 
light, the continual alarm of treason and 
conspiracy rouzed the nation and produced 
eventfully a second revolution. The people 
have beat down royalty, never, never to rise 
again; they have brought Louis Capet to 
the bar, and demonstrated in the face of the 
whole world, the intrigues, the cabals, the 
falsehood, corruption, and rooted depravity 
of his government : there remains then only 
one question to be considered, what is to be 
done with this man? 

" For myself, I freely confess that when 
I reflect on the unaccountable folly that 
restored the executive power to his hands, 
all covered as he was with perjuries and 
treason, I am far more ready to condemn 

L 



146 



the constituent assembly than the unfortunate 
prisoner Louis Capet. 

" But, abstracted from every other consi- 
deration, there is one circumstance in his 
life which ought to cover or at least to 
palliate a great number of his transgres- 
sions, and this very circumstance affords the 
French nation a blessed occasion of extrica- 
ting itself from the yoke of its kings with- 
out defiling itself in the impurities of their 
blood. 



" It is to France alone, I know that the 
United States of America owe that support 
which enabled them to shake off an unjust 
and tyrannical yoke. The ardour and zeal 
which she displayed to provide both men and 
money were the natural consequences of a 
thirst for liberty. But as the nation at that 
time, restrained by the shackles of her own 
government, could only act by means of a. 
monarchical organ, this organ, whatever in 
other respects the object might be, certainly 
performed a good, a great action. 



U1 



" Let then these United States be the 
safeguard and asylum of Louis Gapet. 
There, hereafter, far removed from the 
miseries and crimes of royalty, he may learn, 
from the constant aspect of public prosperity, 
that the true system of government consists 
in fair, equal, and honourable representation. 
In relating this circumstance, and in sub- 
mitting this proposition, I consider myself as 
a citizen of both countries. 

" I submit it as a citizen of America who 
feels the debt of gratitude which he owes 
to every Frenchman. I submit it also as a 
man who cannot forget that kings are sub- 
ject to human frailties. I support my pro- 
position as a citizen of the French republic, 
because it appears to me the best, the most 
politic measure that can be adopted. 

^* As far as my experience in public life 
extends I have ever observed that the great 
mass of the people are invariably just, both 
in their intentions and in their objects; but 
the true method of accomplishing tiiat ciiect, 

L 2 



148 



does not always shew itself in the first in- 
stance. For example, the English nation had 
groaned under the despotism of the Stuarts. 
Hence Charles the 1st lost his life; yet 
Charles the lid was restored to all the 
full plenitude of power which his father 
had lost. Forty years had not expired when 
the same family strove to re-estahlish their 
ancient oppression; so the nation then 
banished from its territories the whole race. 
The remedy was effectual: the Stuart family 
sunk into obscurity, confounded itself with 
the multitude, and is at length extinct. 

" The French nation has carried her mea- 
sures of government to a greater length. 
France is not satisfied with exposing the 
guilt of the monarch, she has penetrated into 
the vices and horrors of the monarchy. She 
has shewn them clear as daylight and for 
ever crushed that system ; and he, whoever 
he may be, that should ever dare to reclaim 
those rights, would be regarded not as a pre- 
tender, but punished as a traitor. 

*' Two brothers of Louis Capet have 



149 



banished themselves from the country, but 
they are obliged to comply with the spirit 
and etiquette of the courts where they reside. 

" They can advance no pretensions on 
their own account so long as Louis shall live* 

" The history of monarchy in France was 
a system pregnant with crimes and murders, 
cancelling all natural ties, even those by 
which brothers are united. We know how 
often they have assassinated each other to 
pave a way to power. As those hopes which 
the emigrants had reposed in Louis XVI are 
fled, the last that remains rests upon his death, 
and their situation inclines them to desire 
this catastrophe, that they may once again 
rally round a more active chief, and try 
one further effort under the fortune of the 
ci-devant Monsieur and d'Artois. That such 
an enterprise would precipitate them into a 
new abyss of calamity and disgrace it is 
not difficult to foresee; yet it might be at- 
tended with mutual loss, and it is our duty 
as legislators not to spill a drop of blood 
when our purpose may be effectually accom- 



loO 



plishcd without it. It has been ahcady pro- 
posed to abohsh the punishment of death, 
and it is with infinite satisfaction that I 
recollect the humane and excellent oration 
pronounced by Robespierre on that subject 
in the constituent assembly. This cause must 
find its advocates in every corner where en- 
lightened politicians and lovers of humanity 
exist, and it ought above all to find them in 
this assembly. 

" Bad governments have trained the human 
race and inured it to the sanguinary arts and 
refinements of punishment; and it is exactly 
the same punishment that has so long shocked 
the sight and tormented the. patience of the 
people which now in their turn they practise 
in revenge on their oppressors. 

" But it becomes us to be strictly on our 
guard against the abomination and perversity of 
such examples. As France has been the first of 
European nations to amend her government, let 
her also be the first to abolish the punishment 
of death, and to find out a milder and more 
effectual substitute. 



151 



" In the particular case now under consider- 
ation, I submit the following propositions.— 
1st. That the national convention shall pro- 
nounce the seiitcnce of banishiiiciit on Louis 
and his famil\^ : 2nd. That Louis C.'apet shall 
be detained in prison till the end of the war, 
and then the sentence of banishment to be 
executed." 

His conduct in this instance as well as that 
towards Captain Grimstone display that hu- 
anane, charitable, and truly benevolent spirit 
which uniformiy marked his character and in- 
fluenced his conduct. 

On the day of the trial of Marat, Mr. Paine 
dined at White's Hotel with Mr. Milnes, a 
gentleman of great hospitality and profusion, 
who usually gave a public dinner to twenty or 
thirty gentlemen once a week. At table, 
among many others besides Mr. Paine, was a 
Captain Grimstone, a lineal descendant from Sir 
Harbottle Grimstone, who was a member of 
Cromwell's parliament and an officer in his 
army. This man was a high aristocrat, a great 
gambler, and it was believed could not quit 



152 



France on account of his being much in debt. 
He took little pains to conceal his political 
principles, and when the glass had freely cir- 
culated, a short time after dinner he attempted 
loudly and impertinently to combat the political 
doctrines of the philosopher: this was to be 
sure the viper biting at the file. Mr. Paine in 
few words, with much acuteness and address, 
continued exposing the fallacy of his reasoning, 
and rebutting his invectives. 

Tlie captain became more violent, and 
waxed so angry, that at length rising from his 
chair he walked round the table to where Mr. 
Paine was sitting, and here began a volley of 
abuse, calling him incendiary, traitor to his 
country, and struck him a violent blow that 
nearly knocked him off his seat. Captain 
Grim stone was a stout young man about thirty, 
tmd Mr. Paine at this time nearly sixty. 



The company, who suspected not such an 
outrage against every thing decent, mannerly, 
and just, and who had occasion frequently 
during dinner to call him to order, were now 
obliged to give him in charge of the national 



i 



153 



guard. It must be remembered that an act 
of the convention had made it death to strike 
a deputy, and every one in company with the 
person committing the assault refusing to give 
up the offender was considered as an accom- 
phce. 

But a short period. before this circumstance 
happened nine men had been decapitated, one 
of whom had struck Bourdeur de L'oise, at 
Orleans. The other eight were walking with 
him in the street at the time. 

Paine was extremely agitated when he 
reflected on the danger of his unprovoked 
enemy, and immediately applied to Barrere, at 
that time president of the committee of public 
safety, for a passport for the unhappy man, who 
must otherwise have suffered death ; and tho he 
found the greatest difficulty in effecting this, he 
however persevered and at length accomplished 
it, at the same time sending Grimstone money 
to defray his travelling expences ; for his pass- 
port was of so short a duration that he was 
obhged to go immediately from his prison to 
the messagerie nationals 



154 



Of Mr. Paine's arrest by Robespierre and 
his iiiiprisonment, &c. we cannot be so well 
informed as by himself in his own aifecting and 



interesting letters. 



" When I was voted out of the French 
convention the reason assigned for it was that 
I was a foreigner. When Robespierre had 
me seized in the niglit and imprisoned in 
the Luxembourg (where I remained eleven 
months) he assigned no reason for it. But 
when he proposed bringing me to the tri- 
bunal, which was like sending me at once 
to the scaifold, he then assigned a reason ; 
and the reason was, ^ for the interest of 
' America as well as France' — * pour Tint^r^t 
' de I'Amerique autant que de la France.' The 
words are in his own hand-writing and re- 
ported to the convention by the committee 
appointed to examine his papers, and are 
printed in their report, with this reflection 
added to them, ^ Why Thomas Paine more 
^ than another? because he contributed to 
' the liberty of both worlds?' There must 
have been coalition in sentiment, if not in 
fact, between the terrorists of America and 



155 



" the terrorists of France, and Robespierre 
*^ must have known it or he could not have 
" had the idea of putting America into the 
" bill of accusation against me. 

" Yet these men, these terrorists of the new 
" world, who were waiting in the devotion of 
" their hearts for the joyful news of my 
" destruction, are the same banditti who are 
'^ now bellowing in all the hackneyed language 
"^ of hackneyed hypocrisy about humanity and 
'^ piety, and often about something they call 
^' infidelity, and they finish with the chorus of 
" crucify him, crucify him. I am become so 
^^ famous among them that they cannot eat or 
** drink without me. I serve them as a stand- 
** ing dish, and they cannot make up a bill of 
*' fare if I am not in it. 

"' Thomas Paine, to their mortification, Pro- 
*' vidence has protected in all his dangers, 
"- patronized him in all his undertakings, en- 
** couraged him in all his ways, and rewarded 
*' him at last by bringing him in health and 
" safety to the promised land. This is more 
- than it did by the Jews, the chosen people 



156 



^^ whom they tell us it brought out of the land 
" of Egypt and out of the house of bondage; 
^^ for they all died in the wilderness and Moses 
" too. I was one of the nine members that 
" composed the first committee of constitution. 
" Six of them have been destroyed ; Sieyes and 
" myself have survived. He by bending with 
*' the times, and I by not bending. The other 
*^ survivor joined Robespierre and signed with 
" him the warrant for my arrestation. 

" After the fall of Robespierre he was seized 
*''■ and imprisoned in his turn, and sentenced to 
" transportation. He has since apologized to me 
" for having signed the warrant by saying he 
^' felt himself in danger and was obliged to do it. 

" Herault Sechelles, an acquaintance of Mr. 
'^ Jefferson's, and a good patriot, was my suppli- 
'^ ant as a member of the committee of constitu- 
" tion ; that is, he was to supply my place if I 
" had not accepted or had resigned, being next 
" in number of votes to me. He was imprisoned 
" in the Luxembourg with me, was taken to the 
^' tribunal and to the guillotine, and I, his prin- 
^^ cipal, was left. 



157 



" There were but two foreigners in the con- 
" vention, Anarcharsis Cloots and myself. We 
" were both put out of the convention by the 
" same vote, arrested by the same order, and 
" carried to prison together the same night. He 
'* was taken to the guillotine, and I was again 
" left. Joel Barlow was with us when we went 
" to prison. Joseph Leban, one of the vilest 
" characters that ever existed, and who made 
*' the streets of Arras run with blood, was my 
'* suppliant member of the convention for the 
" department of the Pais de Calais. When I 
'* was put out of the convention he came and 
" took my place. When I was liberated 
'^ from prison and voted again into the conven- 
*^ tion he was sent to the same prison and took 
*^ my place there, and he went to the guillotine 
*' instead of me. He supplied my place all the 
" way thro. One hundred and sixty-eight per- 
*' sons were taken out of the Luxembourg in one 
" night, and a hundred and sixty of them guillo- 
" tined the next day, of which I know 1 was to 
" have been one ; and the manner I escaped that 
" fate is curious, and has all the appearance of 
" accident. The room in which I was lodged 
^' was on the «:round floor and one of a long; 



158 



*^ range of rooms under a gallery, and the dooi 
" of it opened outward and flat against the wall ; 
^^ so that when it was open the inside of the door 
" appeared outward, and the contrary when it 
" was shut : I had three comrades fellow-prisoners 
" with me, Joseph Vanhuile of Bruges, since 
" president of the municipality of that town, 
*^ Michael Robins, and Bastini of Louvain. 
" When persons by scores and by hundreds were 
" to be taken out of prison for the guillotine it 
" was always done in the night, and those who 
" performed that office had a private mark or 
" signal by which they knew what rooms to go 
*' to, and what number to take. 

** We, as I said, were four, and the door of 
" our room was marked, unobserved by us, with 
" that number in chalk ; but it happened, if hap- 
'* pening is a proper word, that the mark was 
"^ put on the door when it was open and flat 
'* against the wall, and thereby came on the 
*^ inside when we shut it at night, and the de- 
*' stroying angel passed it by. A few days after 
" this Robespierre fell, and the American ambassa- 
" dor arrived and reclaimed me, and invited me 
'' to his house. 



159 



" During the whole of my imprisonment, prior 
" to the fall of Rohespierre, there was no time 
" when I could think my life worth twenty-four 
*' hours ; and my mind was made up to meet 
** its fate. The Americans in Paris went in a 
" body to the convention to reclaim me, but 
" without success. There was no party among 
" them with respect to me. My only hope then 
" rested on the government of America that it 
*' would remember me. 

" But the icy heart of ingratitude, in what- 
" ever man it is placed, has neither feelings nor 
" sense of honour. The letter of Mr. Jeiferson 
" has served to wipe away the reproach, and 
" done justice to the mass of people of 
'^ America." 

While Mr. Paine was in prison he wrote much 
of his 'Age of Reason,' and amused Tiimself with 
carrying on an epistolary correspondence with 
Lady S*"** under the assumed name of ' Tlie 
Castle in the Air,' and her ladyship answered 
under the signature of ' The Little Corner of the 
World.' This correspondence is reported to be 
extreznely beautiful and interesting. 



160 



At this period a deputation of Americans 
solicited the release of Thomas Paine from prison; 
and as this document, and the way in which it is 
introduced in Mr. Sampson Perry's history of the 
French revolution, hear much interest, and are 
highly honourable to Mr. Paine, the deputation, 
and Mr. Perry, I give it in his own words : 

" As an historian does not write in conformity 
** to the humours or caprice of the day, but looks 
" to the mature opinions of a future period, so 
" the humble tracer of these hasty sketches, 
" though without pretensions himself to live in 
" after times, is nevertheless at once desirous of 
" proving his indifference to the unpopularity of 
'* the moment, and his confidence in the justice 
" posterity will exercise towards one of the 
" greatest friends of the human race. The author 
" is the more authorised to pass this eulogium on 
*^ a character already sufficiently celebrious, 
" having; had the means and the occasion of 
*' exploring his mind and his qualities, as well 
" with suspicion as with confidence. The name 
^* of Thomas Paine may excite hatred in some, 
" and inspire terror in others. It ought to do 
" neither, he is the friend of all ; and it is only 



1()1 



^^ because reason and virtue are not sufficiently 
'* prevalent, that so many do not love him : he is 
" not the enemy of those even who are eager to 
" have his fate at their disposal. The time may 
'^ not be far off when they will be glad their 
** fate were at his ; but the cowardly as well as 
^* the brave have contributed to fill England 
^' with dishonour for silently allowing the best 
" friends of the human race to be persecuted with 
*' a viriilence becoming the darkest ages only- 

'^ The physical, world is in rapid movement, 
" the moral advances perhaps as quick ; that part 
" of it which is dark now will be light ; w^hen it 
'^ shall have but half revolved, men and things 
" Will be seen more clearly, and he will be most 
" esteemed by the good who shall have made the 
" largest sacrifice to truth and public virtue. 
*' Thomas Paine was suspected of having checked 
" the aspiring light of the public mind by opi- 
" nions not suitable to the state France was in. 
" He was for confiding more to the pen, and 
" doubting the effect of the guillotine. 

^^ Robespierre said, that method would do 

M 



162 



^* with such a country as America, but could 
" avail nothing in one highly corrupted like 

" France. To disagree in opinion with a mind 

" so heated was to incur all the resentment it 

^^ contained. Thomas Paine had preserved an 

^' intimacy with Brissot from an acquaintance of 

^^ long date, and because he spoke the English 

" language; when Brissot fell Paine was in 

" danger, and, as his preface to the second part 

" of the ' Rights of Man,' shews, he had a miracu- 

" lous escape. 

" The Americans in Paris saw the perilous 
" situation of their fellow citizen, of the cham- 
" pion of the liberty of more than one quarter of 
" the world ; they drew up an address and pre- 
" sented it at the bar of the convention ; it was- 
" worded as follow^s : — 

" ^Citizens! the French nation had invited 
" ' the most illustrious of all foreign nations to 
*^ ^ the honour of representing her. 

i " ^ Thomas Paine, the apostle of liberty in 
*'* ' America, a profound and valuable philoso- 
*• ' pher a virtuous and esteemed citizen, came 



163 



'* ^ to France and took a seat among you. Parti- 
^' ^ cular circumstances rendered necessary the 



" ' decree to put under arrest all the English 
residing in France. 



a c 



*^ ' Citizens ! representatives ! we come to 
" ^ demand of you Thomas Paine, in the name of 
** ^ the friends of liberty, in the name of the 
** * Americans your brothers and allies; was there 
'^ 'any thing more wanted to obtain our demand 
" 'we would tell you. Do not give to the 
" ' leagued despots the; pleasure of seeing Paine 
" ' in irons. We shall inform you that the seals 
'' ' put upon the papers of Thomas Paine have 
'' ' been taken off, that the committee of gene- 
" 'ral safety examined them, and far from 
^' ' finding among them any dangerous proposi- 
" 'tions, they only found the love of liberty 
" ' which characterised him all his life time, that 
" 'eloquence of nature and philosophy which 
*' 'made him the friend of mankind, and those 
"^ 'principles of public morality which merited 
" ' the hatred of kings, and the affection of his 
*' 'fellow-citizens. 

" 'In short, Citizens! if you permit us to 
m2 



164 



" 'restore Thomas Paine to the embraces of his 

" 'fellow-citizens we offer to pledge ourselves 

" * as securities for his conduct during the short 

" ' time he shall remain in France.' " 

After his liberation he found a friendly 
asylum at the American minister's house, 
Mr. Monroe, now president of the United 
States ; and for some years before Mr. Paine left 
Paris, he lodged at M. Bonville's, associating 
occasionally with the great men of the day, Con- 
dorcet, Volney, Mercier, Joel Barlow, &c. &c. 
and sometimes dining with Bonaparte and his 
generals.* — He now indulged his mechanical 
turn, and amused himself in bridge and ship 
modelling, and in pursuing his favorite studies, 



* When Bonaparte returned from Italy lie called on Mr. 
Paine and invited hira to dinner: in the course of his rap- 
turous address to him he declared that a statue of gold 
ought to be erected to him in every city in the universe, 
assuring him that he always slept with his book * Rights 
of Man* under his pillow, and conjured him to honor him 
with his correspondence and advice. 

This anecdote is only related as a fact. Of the sincerity 
of the compHment, those must judge who know Bona- 
parte's principles best. 



165 



the mathematics and natural philosophy. — 
"These models," says a correspondent of that 
time, *' exhibit an extraordinary degree not only 
" of skill but of taste in mechanics, and are 
" wrought with extreme delicacy entirely by his 
" own hands. The largest of these, the model 
" of a bridge, is nearly four feet in length : the 
" iron- works, the chains, and every other article 
^^ belonging to it were forged and manufactured 
" by himself. It is intended as the model of a 
" bridge which is to be constructed across the 
'^ Delaware, extending 480 feet with only one 
" arch. The other is to be erected over a narrower 
^^ river, whose name I forget, and is likewise a 
^^ single arch, and of his own workmanship 
*' excepting the chains, which instead of iron are 
** cut out of pasteboard, by the fair hand of his 
" correspondent,' The little Corner of the World/ 
*' whose indefatigable perseverance is extraor- 
** dinary. He was offered ofSOOO for these models 
" and refused it. He also forged himself the 
*^ model of a crane of a new description, which 
'* when put together exhibited the power of the 
*' lever to a most surprising degree." 

During this time he also published his 



166 



* Dissertation on first Principles of Government/ 
his * Essay on Finance/ his first and second 
parts of the 'Age of Reason,' his 'Letter to 
Washington/ his 'Address to the Tlicophilan- 
thropists/ ' Letter to Erskine/ &c. &c. Poetry 
too employed his idle hours, and he produced 
some fine pieces, Avhich the world will probably 
one day see. 

Wearied with the direction things took in 
France, which he used to say, was " the pro- 
mised land, but not the land of promise," he had 
long sighed for his own dear America. 



"It is,'*^he would say, ''the country of 
'* my heart and the place of my political and 



* See * Letters from Thomas Paine to the Citizens of Ame- 
rica/ after an absence of fifteen years ip Europe, to which are 
subjoined some letters between him and the late General 
Washington, Mr. SamueJ Adams, and the late President of 
the United States, A^r. JetiV'rson; also some original Poetry of 
Mr. Paine's, and a Fnc Simile of his hand-writing in 1803. 
Loudon: published by v nd for Clio Rickman, Upper 
Mary-le-bone-Street, Lone' jn. 



167 



*'* literary birth. It was the American revolution 
" made me an author, and forced into action the 
" mind that had been dormant and had no wish 
** for public Hfe, nor has it now." Mr. Paine 
made many eflbrts to cross the Atlantic, but they 
were ineffectual : some of these I state in his own 
words. "As soon as the American ambassador 
*' had made a pood standino^ with the French 
'^^ government^ (for the conduct of his prede- 
" cessor had made his reception as minister diffi- 
" cult,) he wanted to send dispatches to his own 
" government, by a person to whom he could also 
^^ confide a verbal communication, and he fixed 
*' his choice upon me. He then applied to the 
^'' committee of public safety for a passport, but 
^* as I had been voted again into the convention 
" it was only the convention that could give 
^' the passport ; and as an application to them for 
" that purpose would have made my going 
^^ publicly known, I was obliged to sustain 
" the disappointment, and the then ambassador 
" to lose the opportunity. 

" When that gentleman left France to return 
" to America, I was to have come with him : 
*' it was fortunate I did not The vessel he 



168 



^^ sailed in was visited by an English frigate 
*' that searched every part of it, and down to 
" the hold, for Thomas Paine. I then went the 
*^ same year to embark for Havre; but several 
" British frigates were cruizing in sight of the 
" port, who knew I was there, and I had to 
" return again to Paris, Seeing myself thus cut 
^^ off from every opportunity of returning that 
'^ was in my power to command, I wrote to Mr. 
" Jefferson, requesting that if the fate of the 
" election should put him in the chair of the 
'^ presidency, and he should have occasion to 
" send a frigate to France, he would give me 
*' an opportunity of returning by it, which he 
" did ; but I declined coming by the Maryland, 
" the vessel that was offered me, and waited 
" for the frigate that was to bring the new 
" minister, Mr. Chancellor Livington, to France* 
" but that frigate was ordered to the Mediter- 
" ranean ; and as at that time the war was 
'' over, and the British cruizers called in, I 
" could come any way, I then agreed to come 
*' with Commodore Barney in a vessel he had 
'' engaged. It was again fortunate I did not, 
" for the vessel sunk at sea, and the people were 
'^ preserved in a boat." 



169 

'^ Had half the number of evils befallen me 
'^ that the number of dangers amount to through 
^' which I have been preserved, there are those 
" who would ascribe it to the wrath of heaven ; 
'^ why then do they not ascribe my preservation 
'' to the protecting favour of heaven ? Even in 
" my worldly concerns I have been blessed. 
'^ The little property I left in America, and 
"" which I cared nothing about, not even to 
*' receive the rent of it, has been increasing in 
'^ the value of its capital more than eight hun- 
" dred dollars every year for the fourteen years 
'■ and more that I have been absent from it. I 
'* am now in my circumstances independent, 
'^ and my economy makes me rich. 

"As to my health it is perfectly good, and I 
" leave the world to judge of the stature of my 
'^ mind." 

In July 1802, Mr, Jefferson, the then 
president of America, in a letter to Mr. Paine 
writes thus : 

" You express a wish in your letter to 
" return to America by a national ship. 



170 



*' Mr. Dawson, Avho brings over the treaty, 
and who will present 3^011 this letter, is charged 
with orders to the captain of the Maryland? 
to receive and accommodate you back if you 
can be read v to return at such a short warning:. 
You will in general find us returned to senti- 
ments worthy of former times : in these it 
will be your glory to have steadily laboured, 
and with as much effect as any man living. 
That you may live long to continue your 
useful labours, and reap the reward in the 
thankfulness of nations, is my sincere prayer. 
Accept the assurance of my high esteem and 
affectionate attachment. 



*' Thomas Jefferson. 
'' Washington, July 1802." 



By the Maryland, as Mr. Paine states, he did 
not go ; and it was not till the 1st of September 
1802, after spending some time with him at 
Havre de Grace, that I took leave of him on his 
departure for America, in a ship named the 
London Pacquet, just ten years after his leaving 
my house in London. This parting gave rise to 
the following extempore stanzas : 



171 

STANZAS, 

WRITTEN ON THE BEACH AT HAVRE DE GRACE, 

AND ADDRESSED TO THE 

SEA. 



A generous friendship no cold medium knows." — Popp. 



Thus smooth be thy waves, and thus gentle the breeze. 

As thou l)earest my Paine far away; 
O ! waft him to comfort and regions of ease. 
Each blessing of friendship and freedom to seize. 
And bright be his setting sun's ray. 

May America hail her preserver and friend. 

Whose ' Common Sense' taught her aright. 
How liberty thro her domains to extend, 
The means to acquire each desirable end. 
And fill'd her with reason and light. 

One champion of all that is glorious and good 

Will greet him sincerely I know ; 
No supporter of craft, of oppression, and blood. 
The defender of liberty long he has stood ; 

Of tyranny only the foe. 

Yes Jefferson ! well in his principles school'd. 

Will embrace him with gladness of heart; 
His value he knov^^s and is not to be fooFd, 
Nor his wisdom and knowledge one moment o'er ruled. 
By falsehood, corruption, and art. 



172 



Tlio bitter, dear Paine, is this parting to me, 
I rejoice that from Europe once more, 

From France too, unworthy thy talents and thee. 

Thou art hastening to join the happy and free; 

May the breezes blow gently, and smooth be the sea 
That speed thee to Liberty^s shore ! 

The ardent desire which Mr. Paine ever 
had to retire to and dwell in his beloved 
America is strongly pourtrayed in the follow- 
ing letter to a female friend in that country, 
written some years before. 

" You touch me on a very tender point 
** when you say that my friends on your 
" side of the water cannot be reconciled to 
" the idea of my abandoning xlmerica even 
*' for my native England. 

'^ They are right, I had rather see my 
'^ horse Button eating the grass of Borden- 
*' town or Morisania, than see all the pomp 
" and shew of Europe. 

'' A thousand years hence, for I must 
" indulge a few thoughts, perhaps in less, 
'' America may be what Europe now is. 
'^ The innocence of her character that won 



173 



" the hearts of all nations in her favour may 
" sound like a romance, and her mimitable 
'^ virtue as if it had never been. 

'* The ruins of that liberty for v^^hich 
" thousands bled may just furnish materials 
" for a village tale, or extort a sigh from 
" rustic sensibility, whilst the fashionable of 
" that day, enveloped in dissipation, shall de- 
" ride the principles and deny the fact. 

" When we contemplate the fall of em- 
^^ pires and the extinction of the nations of 
" the ancient world we see but little more 
" to excite our regret than the mouldering 
*' ruins of pompous palaces, magnificent mo- 
*^ numents, lofty pyramids, and walls and tow- 
" ers of the most costly workmanship; but 
" when the empire of America shall fall, the 
" subject for contemplative sorrow will be in- 
*' finitely greater than crumbling brass or 
" marble can inspire. It will not then be 
" said, here stood a temple of vast antiquity, 
" here rose a babel of invisible height, or 
" there a palace of sumptuous extravagance; 
" but here (ah ! painful thought !) the noblest 



174 



^' work of human wisdom, the grandest scene 
" of human glory, and the fair cause of 
" freedom, rose and fell ! Read this, and then 
"ask if I forget America." 

There is so uncommon a degree of interest, 
and that which conveys an idea of so much 
heart intercourse in this letter, that the 
reader may be led to desire some know- 
ledge of the person to w^hom it was addressed. 
This lady's name was I believe Nicholson, 
and afterwards the wife of Colonel Few; 
between her and Mr. Paine a very affec- 
tionate attachment and sincere regard sub- 
sisted, and it was no small mortification on 
his final return to New York to be totally 
neglected by her and her husband. 

But against the repose of Mr. Paine's 
dying moments there seems to have been a 
conspiracy, and this lady after years of dis- 
regard and inattention sought Mr. Paine on 
his death bed. 

Mr. Few was with her, but Mr. Paine, 
refusing to shake hands with her, said firmly 



175 



and very impressively, " You have neglected 
" me, and I beg you will leave the room." 

Mrs. Few went into the garden, and wept 
bitterly. 

Of Mr. Paine's reception in America and 
some interesting account of his own life and its 
vicissitudes, his * Letters to the Citizens of Ame- 
rica/ before noticed, speak better than I can. 

These letters, under the care of Mr. 
Monroe, he sent me in 1804, and I pub- 
lished them, with the following one of his 
own accompanying them, 

'^ My dear Friend, 

" Mr. Monroe, who is appointed mi- 
*' nister extraordinary to France, takes charge 
^^ of this, to be. delivered to Mr. Este, banker 
" in Paris, to be forwarded to you, 

'^ I arrived at Baltimore 30th of October, 
^^ and you can have no idea of the agitation 
*• which mv arrival occasioned. From New 



176 



" Hampshire to Georgia, (an extent of 1500 
'^ miles) every newspaper was filled with ap- 
" plause or abuse. 

" My property in this country has been 
** taken care of by my friends, and is now 
" worth six thousand, pounds sterling ; which 
" put in the funds will bring me ,£400 
" sterling a year. 

'' Remember me in friendship and affec- 
" tion to your wife and family, and in the 
" circle of our friends* 

" I am but just arrived here, and the 
" minister sails in a few hours, so that I 
" have just time to write you this. If he 
'' should not sail this tide I will write to my 
'* good friend Col. Bosville, but in any case 
" I request you to wait on him for me, 

" Your's in friendship, 

" Thomas Paine." 

What course he meant to pursue in Ame- 
rica, his own words will best tell, and best 



177 



characterize his sentiments and principles: 
they are these : 

" As this letter is intended to announce 
" my arrival to my friends, and my enemies 
" if I have any, for I ought to have none in 
" America, and as introductory to others 
" that will occasionally follow, I shall close 
" it by detailing the line of conduct I shall 
*' pursue* 

" I have no occasion to ask, nor do I 
" intend to accept, any place or office in the 
" government* 

*' There is none it could give me that 
'* would in aiiy way be equal to the profits 
" I could i make as an author (for I have an 
" established fame in the literary world) could 
'* I reconcile it to my principles to make 
" money by my politics or religion; I must 
" be in every thing as I have ever been, a 
^* disinterested volunteer: my proper sphere 
'^ of action is on the common floor of citizen- 
'' ship, and to honest men I give my hand 
" and my heart freely. 

N 



178 



^^ ,1 have some manuscript works to publish. 
of which I shall give proper notice^ and some 
" mechanical affairs to bring forward, that will 
*^ employ all my leisure time. 

" I shall continue these letters as I see 
" occasion, and as to the low party prints that 
" choose to abuse m*e, they are welcome; I 
" shall not descend to answer them. I have 
" been too much used to such common stuff to 
" take any notice of it. 

*' Thomas Paine." 
" City of Washington." 

From this period to the time of his death, 
which was the 9th of June 1809, Mr, Paine 
lived principally at New York, and on his estate 
at New Rochelle; publishing occasionally some 
excellent things in the Aurora Newspaper, also 
' An Essay on the Invasion of England,' ' On 
the Yellow Fever,' ' On Gun-Boats,' &c. &c. 
and in 1807, ' An Examination of the Pas- 
sages in the New Testament, quoted from 
the Old, and called Prophecies concerning Jesus 
Christ/ &c. 



17& 



This IS a most acute, profound, clear, argu- 
tnentative, and entertaining work, and may be 
considered and is now entitled ' The Third Part 
of the Age of Reason.' 

In the course of Mr. Palne's life, he was 
often reminded of a reply he once made to this 
observation of Dr. Franklin's, " Where liberty is, 
there is my country :" Mr. Paine's retort was, 
" Where liberty is not, there is ray country." 
And unfortunately he had occasion for many 
years in Europe to realize the truth of his axiom. 

Soon after Mr. Paine's arrival in America 
he invited over Mr. and Mrs. Bonneville and their 
children. At Bonneville's house at Paris he had 
for years found a home, a friendly shelter, when 
the difficulty of getting supplies of money from 
America, and other and many ills assailed him. 
Bonneville and his family were poor, and sunk in 
the world ; Mr, Paine therefore, tho he was not 
their inmate without remuneration, offered them 
in return an asylum with him in America. 
Mrs. Bonneville and her three boys, to whom he 
was a friend during his life and at his death, 
soon joined him there. If any part can be 

N 2 



180 



marked out as infamous and wicked, in a book 
full of what is so, it is Cheetham's suggestion 
upon this just and generous conduct of Mr. 
Paine's to the Bonneville family, which he 
attributes to the most base and cowardly 
motives. 

Among other things in * Cheetham's Life of 
Mr. Paine' is the assertion that he wrote ' The 
Commentary on the Eastern Wise Men travel- 
ling to Bethlehem guided by a Star,' &c. and 
' The Story of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram/ 
at Mr. Carver's house at New York. This 
stands among a large catalogue of other false- 
hoods, for these and other very pointed satirical 
poems were given to me some 3'ears before this 
by Mr. Paine in France. The particulars 
of Mr. Paine's being shot at while sitting by his 
fire-side at Bordentown is given in his own 
letters in the appendix, page 224. The bullet 
from the fire-arm shattered the glass over the 
chimney-piece very near to him. I find a letter 
in reply to one of mine, in which he writes 
" the account you heard of a man's firing into 
" my house is true — the grand jury found the 
" bill against him, and he lies over for trial/ 



181 



The latter part of ' Cheetham's Life of Mr. 
Paine' is taken up in giving letters between him 
and Carver, at whose house he lodged some time 
at New York, about domestic and pecuniary 
differences, trifling and local trash, and in de- 
tailing the gossip and nonsensical malevolence 
of the idle, fanatical, and prejudiced. 

. As the author of these memoirs well knows 
and corresponds with Mr. Carver, it is very 
plain to him that Cheetham has supplied much 
of the stxle and matter of Carver's letters, for 
Mr. Carver was a most strenuous advocate 
and supporter of Mr. Paine's political and re- 
ligious principles. 

That he and Mr. Paine had some private 
diiferenoes while Mr. Paine was his lodger is 
true; and it should seem that Cheetham, bent 
upon giving an erroneous bias to every thing 
concerning Mr. Paine, stirred up and magni- 
fied these differences, and made the letters 
which Carver really wrote, the vehicle of 
extraneous, bitter, and false matter, which 
formed no part of the original disagreement be- 
tween them ; in short, Cheetham's work is filled 
with abuse of a man whose age, for Paine 



182 



was then past seventy, ought to have been hia 
protection, and might have been offered as 
an apology at least for some defects and 
failings when his mind too was depressed 
under neglect, abuse, and misrepresenta-^ 
tion. 

In January 1809, Mr. Paine became very 
feeble and infirm, so much so, as to be 
scarcely capable of doing any thing for 
himself. 

During this illness he was pestered on 
every hand with the intrusive and impertinent 
visits of the bigoted, the fanatic, and the 
designing. To entertain the reader, some spe- 
cimens of the conduct of these intruders are 
here given. 

He usually took a nap after dinner, and 
would not be disturbed let who would call 
to see him. One afternoon a very old lady 
dressed in a large scarlet hooded cloak 
knocked at the door and enquired for Tho- 
mas Paine. Mr. Jarvis, with whom Mr. Paine 
resided, told her he was asleep. 1 am very 
sorry she said for that, for I want to see him 



183 



particularly. Thinking it a pity to make an 
old woman call twice, Mr. Jarvis took her 
into Mr. Paine's bed room, and awoke him; 
he rose upon one elbow, then, with an ex- 
pression of eye that made the old woman 
stagger back a step or two, he asked, *^ What 
" do you want?" *' Is your name Paine?" 
" Yes." " Well then, I come from Almighty 
'^ God to tell you, that if you do not repent 
" of your sins, and believe in our blessed 
" saviour Jesus Christ, you will be damned 
" and" — " Poh, poh, it is not true, you 
" were not sent with any such impertinent 
'^ message; Jarvis, make her go away; pshaw! 
" he would not send such a foolish ugly old 
*' woman about with his messages; go away, 
" go back, shut the door." The old lady retired, 
raised both her hands, kept them so, and 
without saying another word walked away 
in mute astonishment. 

The following is a curious example of a 
friendly, neighbourly visit. 

About two weeks before his death he was 
visited by the Rev. Mr. MilledoUar, a pres- 



184 



b3^terian minister of great eloquence, and the 
Rev. Mr. Cunningham. The latter gentleman 
said, '' Mr. Paine, we visit you as friends and 
'* neighbours: you have now a full view of 
" death, you cannot live long, and whoever 
^' does not believe in Jesus Christ will 
^^ assuredly be damned." " Let me," said 
Paine, *' have none of your popish stuff; get 
*' away with you, good morning, good 
'* morning." The Rev. Mr. Milledollar at- 
tempted to address him but he was inter- 
rupted in the same language. When they 
were gone, he said to Mrs. Hedden, his 
housekeeper, *' do not let them come here 
" again, they intrude upon me." They soon 
renewed their visit, but Mrs. Hedden told 
them they could not be admitted, and that 
she thought the attempt useless, for if God 
did not change his mind, she was sure no 
hum.an power could: they retired. Among 
others, the Rev. Mr. Hargrove, minister of a 
new sect called the New Jerusalemites, once 
accosted him with this impertinent stuff: 
" My name is Hargrove, sir ; I am minister 
'* of the new Jerusalem church ; we, sir, ex- 
" plain the scripture in its true meaning; 



185 



^Vthe key has been lost these four thousand 
^' years, and we have found it." " Then," 
said Pahie in his own neat way, ** it must 
'■ have been very rusty." 

In his last moments he was very anxious 
to die, and also very solicitous about the 
mode of his burial; for as he was completely 
unchanged in his theological sentiments, he 
Would on no account, even after death, 
countenance ceremonies he disapproved, con- 
taining doctrines and expressions of a belief 
which he conscientiously objected to, and 
had spent great part of his life in combat- 
ting. 

He wished to be interred in the quaker's 
burying ground, and on this subject he re- 
quested to see Mr. Willet Hicks, a member 
of that society, who called on him in con- 
sequence. 

Mr, Paine, after the usual salutations, said, 
" As I am going to leave one place it is 
" necessary to provide another; I am now 
«' in my seventy-third year, and do not ex- 



186 



'' pect to li\e long; I wish to be buried in 
" your burying ground." He said his father 
was a quaker, and that he thought better of 
the principles of that society than any other, 
and approved their mode of burial. This 
request of Mr. Paine was refused, very 
much to the discredit of those who did so; 
and as the quakers are not unused to grant 
s\ich indulgencies, in this case it seemed to 
arise from very little and unworthy motives 
and prejudices, on the part of those who com- 
plied not with this his earnest and unas- 
suming solicitation. 

The above quaker in some conversation of a 
serious nature with Mr. Paine, a short time be- 
fore his death, was assured by him that his senti- 
ments respecting the christian religion were 
now precisely the same as when he wrote the 
' Age of Reason.' 

About the 4th of May, symptoms of ap- 
proaching dissolution became very evident to 
himself, and he soon fell off his milk-punch, and 
became too infirm to take any thing ; complain- 
ing of much bodily pain. 



187 



On the 8th of June 1809, about 9 in the 
morning, he placidly, and almost without a 
struggle, died, as he had lived, a deist. 

Why so much consequence should be attached 
to what is called a recantation in man's last mo- 
ments of a belief or opinion held thro life, a thing 
I never witnessed nor knew any one who did, it is 
difficult to say, at least with any credit, to those 
who harp so much upon it. A belief or an opinion 
is none the less correct or true even if it be recant- 
ed, and I strenuously urge the reader to reflect 
seriously, how few there are who really have any 
fixed belief and conviction thro life of a 
metaphysical or religious nature ; how few who 
devote any time to such investigation, or who 
are not the creatures of form, education, and 
habit; and take upon trust tenets instead of 
inquiring into their truth and rationality. In- 
deed it appears that those who are so loud about 
the recantation of philosophers, are neither 
religious, moral, or correct themselves, and 
exhibit not in their own lives, either religion 
in belief, or principle in conduct. 

He was aged 72 years and 5 months. At 



188 



nine of the clock in the forenoon of the Dth of 
June, the day after his decease, he was taken 
from his house at Greenwich, attended by seven 
persons, to New Rochelle ; where he was after- 
wards interred on his own faira. A stone has 
been placed at the head of his grave according 
to the direction in his will, with the following- 
inscription,' — 

THOMAS PAINE, 

AUTHOR OF 

COMMON SENSE, 
Died June 8th 1809, Aged 72 Years and 5 Months. 

There is near the close of Cheetham's Life of 
Mr. Paine a letter of a Doctor Manley's, descrip- 
tive of Mr. Paine's illness, and some of his last 
hours ; but it is too evidently the production of 
a fanatic, who wished to discredit and traduce 
him, and also who was wrath at his being a deist. 

As an instance of the tone of this letter which 
Cheetham wrote to Manley for, and which was 
a contrivance between them to slander him, he 
says, '' that his anger was easily kindled, and I 
doubt not that his resentments were lasting." 
This libeller of Mr. Paine knew but little of 



189 



him, and wrote thus on visitmg him in a 
dying state worn down with age, pain, and 
feebleness. 

O shame ! where is thy bhish ! — The visits 
of Doctor Manley to Mr. Paine in his last 
moments look very like a contrivance to mis- 
represent and encourage the notion of his 
recantation. 

Manley's letter is evidently written to an- 
swer a purpose among the enemies of Mr. Paine, 
and has been particularly circulated in a 
mutilated state, in order generally to impose 
the idea that Mr. Paine renounced his faith 
before he died ; yet even this letter has the fol- 
lowing passage : 

Again I addressed him, " Mr. Paine, you 
" have not answered my questions — will you 
" answer them ? Allow me to ask again, Do 
*' you believe, or let me qualify the question, 
" Do you wish to believe that Jesus Christ is 
'' the son of God? After a pause of some 
" minutes he answered, I have no wish to be- 
" lieve on that subject. I then left him, and 
'' know not whether he afterwards spoke." 



1.90 



The reader must from the foregoing pages 
be persuaded how unkindl}^ teased and 
obtrusively tormented were the closing hours 
of Mr. Paine's hfe; hours that always should 
be soothed by tenderness, quietude, and every 
kind attention, and in which the mind gene- 
rally loses all its strength and energy, and is 
as unlike its former self as its poor suffering 
companion the body. 

Infirmity doth still neglect all office, 
Whereto our health is bound ; we are not ourselves 
When nature, being oppressed, commands the mind 
To suffer with the body. 

Shakspeare. 

To a rational man it should seem that a deist, 
if he be so from principle, and he is as likely to 
be so as any other religionist, is no more to be 
expected to renounce his principles on his death- 
bed or to abandon his belief at that moment, than 
the Christian, the Jew, the Mahometan, or any 
other religionist. 



It will be seen that Mr. Paine very early, 
when a mere child, was inspired as it were with 
the antichristian principles which he held re- 
ligiously thro life. See page 36,' Age of Reason.' 



191 



" From the time I was capable of conceiving 
^^ an idea and acting upon it by reflection, I 
" either doubted the truth of the Christian sys- 
^^ tern, or thought it to be a strange affair; I 
" scarcely knew which it was, but I well 
" remember, when about seven or eight years of 
"age, hearing a sermon read by a relation of 
" mine who was a great devotee of the church 
" upon the subject of what is called " redemp- 
'' tion^ by the death of the son of God." 

" After the sermon was ended I went into 
" the garden, and as I was going down the 
" garden-steps (for I perfectly recollect the spot) 
'^ I revolted at the recollection of what I had 
^' heard : it was to me a serious reflection arising 
*^ from the idea I had, that God was too good to 
" (lo such an action, and also too almighty to 
"be under any necessity of doing it. I believe 
*^ in the same manner to this moment : and I 
*' moreover believe that any system of religion 
" that has any thing in it that shocks the mind of 
*^ a child cannot be a true system." 

His philosophical and astronomical pursuits 
could not but confirm him in the most exalted. 



1^2 



the most divine ideas of a supreme being, and in 
the purity and sublimity of deism. 

A belief of millions of millions of inhabited 
worlds, millions of millions of miles apart, neces- 
sarily leads the mind to the worship of a God 
infinitely above the one described by those reli- 
gionists who speak and write of him as they do, 
and as if only the maker of our earthy and as alone 
interested in ^vhat concerns it. In contemplating 
the immense works of God, ' the creation' is the 
only book of revelation in w^hich the deist can 
believe ; and his religion consists in contempla- 
ting the power, wnsdom, and benignity of him in 
his glorious works, and endeavouring to imitate 
him in every thing moral, scientifical and mecha- 
nical. It cannot be urged too strongly, so much 
wrong headedness if not w^'ong heartedness is 
there on this subject, that the religion of the deist 
no more precludes the blessed hope of salvation 
than the christian or any other religion. 

We see thro different mediums, and in 
our pursuits and experience are unlike. How 
others have felt after reading maturely the * Age 
of Reason,' and the ' Rights of Man,' and pur- 



193 



suing fairly, coolly, and assiduously the subject<5 
therein treated, I leave to them; but for myself I 
must say, these works carried perfect conviction 
with them to my mind, and the opinions they 
contain are fully confirmed by much reading, 
by long, honest, unwearied investigation and 
observation. 

The best and wisest of human beings both 
male and female that I have known thro life have 
been deists, nor did any thing in the shape of their 
recantation either in life or death ever come to 
my knowledge, nor can I understand how a 
real, serious, and long-adopted belief can be 
recanted. 

That Mr. Paine's religious belief had been 
long established and was with him a deep rooted 
principle, may be seen by his conduct when 
imprisoned and extremely ill in the Luxembourg 
in 1794* 

Mr. Bond, an English surgeon who was 
confined there at the same time, tho by no 



See * Age of Reason/ part 1. 
O 



194 



means a friend to Mr. Paines political or theo- 
logical doctrines, gave me the following testi- 
mony of Mr. Paine's sentiments : 

" Mr. Paine, while hourly expecting to die, 
'^ read to me parts of his ' Age of Reason ; ' and 
'* every night when I left him to be separately 
^' locked up, and expected not to see him alive 
" in the morning, he always expressed his firm 
^ belief in the principles of that book, and 
" begged I would tell the world such were his 
" dying opinions. He often said that if he lived 
'^ he s^hould prosecute further that work, and 
'• print it." Mr. Bond's frequent observation 
when speaking of Mr. Paine was, that he was 
the most conscientious man he ever knew. 

While upon this subject, it will probably 
occur to the reader, as well as to the writer, how 
little belief from inquiry and principle there 
is in the world; and how much oftener religious 
profession is adopted from education, form, pru- 
dence, fear, and a variety of other motives, than 
from unprejudiced enquiry, a love truth, of free 
discussion, and from entire conviction. Reasoning 
thus, it may fairly be inferred that men like Mr. 



195 



Paine, a pious deist, of deep research, labonoiis 
enquiry, and critical examination, are the most 
likely from disinterested motives to adopt opi- 
nions, and of course the least likely to relinquish 
them. 

Before I quit the subject I give the following 
authentic document in a letter from New 
York : 

"Sir, 

" I witnessed a scene last night which 
" occasioned sensations only to be felt not to 
" be described ; the scene I allude to was no 
^' less extraordinary than the beholding the well- 
" known Thomas Paine struggling to retain a 
'^ little longer hi connection his soul and body. 
** For near an hour I sat by the bedside of that 
" well-known character, to whom I was intro- 
" duced by one of his friends. Could the me- 
** mory have retained the suggestions of my 
" mind in the moments when I was reviewing 
'^ the pallid looks of him who had attempted 
" to overthrow kingdoms and monarchies, of 
"him who has astonished the world with the 
" fruits of a vast mind, whose works have 

o 2 



196 



*' caused a great part of mankind to think and 
" feel as they never did before, such suggestions^ 
" would not be uninteresting to you. I could not 
" contemplate the approaching dissolution of 
" such a man, see him gasping for breath, with- 
" out feelings of a peculiar nature. Poor Paine's 
** body has given way before his mind which 
*' is yet firm ; mortification seems to have taken 
" up its dwelling in his frame, and he will soon 
" be no more. With respect to his principles 
<* he will die as he has lived ; they are unaltered. 
^' Some methodists went to him a few days 
" ago to endeavour to make a convert of him, 
" but he would not listen to their entreaties." 

Soon after Mr. Paine's death the following 
character of him and his writings appeared in a 
London news-paper, written by a gentleman well 
acquainted with him and them : 

" He was in his youth of a strong resolution 
" and constant temper. He had from his in- 
*^ fancy adopted the opinions he so successfully 
** promulgated in his manhood. All his literary 
^^ productions evince an acute, profound, and 
'' determined mind. His language is simple 



197 



*' and nervous, adapted to all capacities, and so 
" pointed and unequivocal that there is no mis- 
^' conceiving it. He is sententious, his axioms 
*' are incontrovertible and self-evident, and their 
" impressions are indelible. 

" No human being's efforts have done more 
" for liberty. He has made more converts than 
'^ Sydney and Russell. His * Common Sense' 
'^ enfranchised America. America was divided 
" between two parties ; the arguments of this 
*' little pamphlet decided the contest. His 
*' glorious 'Rights of Man' had nearly a similar 
** effect in England. Innumerable replies have 
" been made against it, but so weak and futile as 
" to injure the cause they were meant to sustain. 
** He reasoned from facts, and his diction was 
** irresistible. 

*' He pours down like a torrent and bears 
•* every thing before him. He was prosecuted 
" for his works, but they were so admired that 
*' they were in every library. He seemed stern 
" and morose, but he was lenient, friendlyj and 
^* benevolent. 

" He instanced his humanity by his resolute 



im 



vote to save the king of France, and the san- 
guinary Robespierre never forgave him, and 
in the reign of terror imprisoned him ; but 
this apostle of liberty, though in such eminent 
danger, never retracted hi3 opinions, nor im- 
plored mercy. It pleased Providence that he 
should escape this monster. Bold, manly, and 
fearless, 4ie never concealed his sentiments; 
positive and inflexible, they never varied, 
being founded on conviction and pure prin- 
ciples. He remained at Paris long after Bona- 
parte rendered himself supreme in the state, 
and spoke as free as ever. In 1802, he de- 
parted from Paris for his admired America; 
the only true birth-place of liberty, where he 
finished his days in 1809, June 8, at New- 
York, aged 73, 

His ashes there. 
But his fame every where." 



The following advertisement appeared in 
the New York Advertiser, June 9, 1809 : 

^' Mr. Thomas Paine. 

** Thy spirit, independence, let me share. ' 

Smollett. 



'^ With heart-felt sorrow and poignant 



199 



regret we are compelled to announce to the 
world that Mr. Thomas Paine is no more. 

'* This distinguished philanthropist, whose 
life was devoted to the cause of humanity, 
departed this life yesterday morning; and if 
any man's memory deserved a place in the 
breast of a freeman, it is that of the de- 
ceased, for 

* take him for all in all 
* We ne'er shall look upon his like again/ 

" The friends of the deceased are invited 
to attend his funeral by 9 o'clock in the 
morning, from his late residence at Green- 
wich, from whence his corpse will be con- 
veyed to New Hochelle for interment; 

* His ashes there. 
His fame every where.*' " 



* This quotation, which is a translation from a Latin 
epitaph on Frederick lUd, thus rendered, would serve 
very well for Mr. Paine. 

In this small compass the Paine's ashes lie. 
His fame is every where, and ne'er shall die. 



200 



It appears by Mr. Paines will th^it he 
died worth a considerable property. This will 
is in the latter part of the appendix. 

Before I take leave of my reader I would 
press upon his mind the necessity of candour ; 
and if he be a christian I must tell him 
he will cease to be so the moment he 
appeals to coercion and resorts to prosecu- 
tion and to persecution in matters of belief 
and opinion : such conduct his own * New Tes- 
tament' is decidedly against. It is better not 
to believe in a God than to believe unwor- 
thily of him, and the less we make him 
after our image the less we blaspheme him. 
Let enquiry supercede calumny and censure, 
and let it be ever remembered that those 
systems in government or religion which 
will not bear discussion and investigation are 
not worth solicitude. Ignorance is the only 
original sin: spread information and knowledge, 
and virtue and truth will follow. Read I beg 
you, reader, Lord Bolingbroke's 3rd and 4th 
chapters " concerning authority in matters of 
religion;" read the " Letter of Gilbert Wake- 
field," who was a violent christian, to Sir John 



201 



Scott, then attorney general, about the 
year 1798, from which this is an extract : 

" What right, I wish to be informed, can 
" one man claim, distinct from power and 
" tyranny, and usurpation, to dictate creeds, 
" and to prescribe sentiments, for another? 

" Let us put an extreme case upon this 
** question, which will abundantly elucidate, 
** and indubitably decide the controversy: I 
" mean the publication of ' Paine's Age of 
" Reason.' 

*' But I would not forcibly suppress this 
" book ; much less would I punish (O ! my 
" God ! be such wickedness far from me: or 
** leave me destitute of thy favour in the 
*' midst of this peijured and sanguinary gene- 
'^ ration!) much less would I punish, by fine 
^' or imprisonment, from any possible consi- 
" deration, the publisher, or author, of those 
" pages. 

" Prudential motives would prevent 
** me ; because such interdiction serves only to 



202 



" excite the restless curiosity of mankind; 
*' and the restraints of law give fresh vigour 
'* to circulation. 

" Motives of philosophy would prevent 
** me : because enquiry and discussion are 
^' hereby provoked ; and sparks of truth, which 
" would otherwise have been concealed for 
" ever, are elicited by the collision of debate; 
^^ to the unspeakable emolurnent and illumi- 
" nation of mankind, in the promotion of 
" mutual forbearance and esteem, in the fur- 
" therance of valuable knowledge, and in 
" the consequent propagation of all happiness 
" and virtue. Truth can never suffer from 
" argument and enquiry ; but may be essen- 
" tially injured by the tyrannous interference 
'^ of her pretended advocates. 

*^ Motives of justice would deter me. 
<' Why should I refuse another that privilege of 
'* thinking and writing, which 1 claim and 
" exercise myself? 

'•' Motives of humanity would deter me^ 



208 



" I should think with horror -on the punish- 
*■ ment of any man for his belief; in 
" which he has no discretionary power, but 
" is necessarily swayed by the controlling 
" despotism of arguments and reasons; and at 
'' what licence or patent shop shall 1 purchase 
** a gag to silence him? Or, what shall hin- 
" der him from forming the same unfavour- 



'^ able judgment of my opinions, and pur- 
" suing in his turn the same measures of 
" intimidation and coercion with myself ? 



" Thus the fair and goodly creation of 
" the Almighty is to be converted into a 
*^ howling wilderness of savage beasts, alter- 
^^ nately hunting and worrying each other. 

^* Lastly, MOTIVES of religion would 
^' deter me from molesting any writer for the 
^^ publication of his sentiments." 

Oppose argument to argument, reason to 
reason, opinion to opinion, book to book, 
truth must prevail ; and that which is of di- 
vine origin will bring itself thro. Set not 
attorney generals smd human hws at work, 



204 



nor pay any religion which boasts an heavenly 
origin so bad a compliment, or libel its 
founders, by endeavouring to support it by 
such infamous means. Suffer me, while on this 
subject, to re-publish the following 

VERSES, 

WRITTEN EXTEMPORE 



CONVENT 

AT 

MON SERRATE in SPAIN, 

1785. 



With solemn step, this awful pile I tread. 
Nor with indignant eye around me gaze ; 

Nor view contemptuously the sacred dead. 
The bloody cross, and ever burning blaze. 

No idle prejudice my soul conceives. 
Nor horrid bigotry my bosom feels ; 

I damn not him, who this or that believes. 
Nor care before what saint the good man kneels. 



205 

Still to the great Jehovah, Lord of all ! 

In difFerent ways the pious heave the sigh; 
Regardless of the mode, he hears their call. 

And dries, in every land, the tearful eye. 

The honest mind in every varied clime, 

AUke demands the approving smile of heaven ; 

Sincere amendment does away the crime. 

And mercy to the contrite heart is given. 

Is not the God you worship boundless love ? 

Say then ye sects of every land and name, 
How do you dare his dictates disapprove. 

And ever seek each other to defame ? 

Shall you, who boast a Saviour for your head, 
A lord who suffered, died, and bled for all. 

Still in your actions contradict his creed, 

And wanting candour — low as devils fall ! * 



• The author wishes to be understood, that he only uses the 
word devils figuratively ; he has no faith in their existence really, 
and he believes, that when mankind find that they do not want 
wars, and taxes, and a religion to underprop the extravagancies 
of power by extravagancies of its own, they will discover that they 
eaii do very well without devils. 



206 

Hence^ ye profane ! of whatsoever tribe, 

And perish all the systems that you teach ! 
In vain you talk, if you have priestly pride. 
And wanting charity in vain you preach. 

What are your forms, ye Christians, Pagans, Turks ? 

If vehicles to serve your God, 'tis well ; 
He heeds not what they are, if good your works. 

Nor cares if psalms you sing, or beads you tell. 

Serve then sincere that Power who reigns above; 

O'er all he holds corrective mercy's rod ; 
On all, by varying means, pours boundless love. 
Then work his will, his goodness haste to prove, — 

For all the pure in heart shall see their God. 

Poetical Scraps, vol. II. page 135, 



How paltry, how detestable, is that eriticism, 
which only seeks to find out and dwell on er- 
rors and inaccuracies ; passing over in silence, 
what is grand, sublime, and useful ! How still 
more paltry, and detestable, is that disposition, 
which seeks only to find out and dwell on the 
defects and foibles of character 1 



While Mr. Paine's enemies have laboured, 



207 



and are still labouring, to detect vices and errors 
in his life and manners, shall not his friends 
dwell on the immense good he has done in public 
life, on the happiness he has created for myriads, 
in private ? Shall they not point to the abodes of 
delight and comfort, where live and flourish the 
blessings of domestic bliss; affection's dear 
intercourses, friendship's solaces, and love's 
sacred enjoyments ? and there are millions of 
such abodes originating in his labours. Why 
seek occasions, surly critics and detractors ! to 
maltreat and misrepresent Mr. Paine ? He was 
mild, unoffending, sincere, gentle, humble, and 
unassuming ; his talents were soaring, acute, pro« 
found, extensive, and original ; and he possessed 
that charity, which covers a multitude of sins : 
but as the following Elegy, published soon after 
his death, conveying a just character of him, is 
considered as a more appropriate channel for 
doing so than prose, I take the liberty to con- 
clude this Life with transcribing it. 



208 



ELEGY 



TO TUB, 



MEMORY OF THOMAS PJINE. 



The unconquerable mind, and Freedom's holy flame. GkaY. 



Acutely throbbM my bosom, as I stood 

On Gallia's strand, and markt, with tearful eye, 

Thy lessening bark that plough'd the briny flood. 
Till the last glimpse was lost mid sea and sky. 

Yet hope still fluttered round my aching breast ; 

And as along our favorite walks I stray'd. 
While the bright sun was sinking in the west. 

And Seine her matchless prospects wide displayed 

Or while the moon, holding her high career, 

Gleam'd on the sombre woods and glittering main, 

While murmuring surges, breaking on the ear, 
With melancholy musings mixt their strain — 

Fondly I sighM, alas ! — Tho here no more 

Mid Nature's loveliest scenery we shall prowl. 

Nor share again, on Havre's charming shore, 
** The feast of reason and the flow of soul" — 



209 



Tbo here, mid bowers fit for the Muse's haunt, 

We ne'er shall shape our devious course again ; 
Ne'er range the hilly, the woods, the fields, that slant 

Where the broad Seine majestic meets the main- 
Yet will I not despair. The time may come. 

When on Columbia's free and happy coast. 
With thee once more at large thy friend shall roam. 

Once more renew the blessings he has lost. 

Thus Hope still flutter'd round my throbbing breast, 
And heal'd the direful wound which parting gave, 

Soothed each afflictive feeling into rest, 
And like a pitying angel came to save. 

And often thus, amid my troublous days — 

A life eventful, and of varied hue — 
Has Hope shone on me with benignant rays, 

And present evils taught me to subdue. 

Fallacious charmer! long my soul enjoy'd 
The pleasing hope to cross the Atlantic main ; 

But cruel Death the promised bliss destroy'd, 
And snatcht, with unrelenting hand, my Paine, 

Cast in superior mould, some nobler souls 
Sublimely soar, for great events design'd, 

Whom no corruption taints, no vice controls — 
W'ho live to enlighten — live to bless mankind. 



210 

Wise by some centuries before the crowd, 
These, by their systems novel tho correct, 

!Must still ofttnd the wicked, weak, and proud ; 
Must meet with hatred, calumny, neglect. 

Twas ever thus ; and such has been thy fate — 
The fate of all, pre-eminent like thee : 

But glory, honour, and renown, tho late 

Thy well-deserved, thy sure reward shall be. 

Oh 1 had thy hasty censurers known thee well. 

Unbiassed had they weigh'd thy works and thee ; 

Base Calumny had blush'd her tale to tell. 

And thousands from this worst of crimes been free — 

This CRIME of CRIMES ! to damn unheard, unknown, 
The lives and labours of the great and true : 

Here the malicious slanderer stands alone ; 
No fouler aim can infamy pursue. 

What agonies have wrung my indignant breast. 
To hei^r abused the man who proudly stood. 

Of every talent, every worth possest. 

Immutable and just, and wise and good! 

Is WIT a quality to charm the soul ? 

Is genius dear — is science to be loved? 
Is Reason, of omnipotent controul, 

Man's highest, noblest boast, to be approved? 



211 

is all divine phii^osophy, held fortli 

As every good dispensing to our race, 
Spreading philanthropy and taste on earth. 

And raising man above the vile and base ? 

Are strong, romantic, rich, poetic powers-^ 
Fancy, that scatters all the graces round — 

And anecdote, that gilds convivial hours- 
Talents ACUTE, IMPEESSIVE, and PROFOUND— 

Are THESE held dear, and by the bard and sage 

Reverenced, esteem'd, and praised, from pole to pole f 

Then Paine must live to every future age, 
And IMMORTALITY his name enrolL 

For ME, ^ho thus pourtray the man I loved, 
No venal motives guide the ardent quill ; 

For still to me the fond attachment proved 
A source of sufferings, calumny, and ilL 

But not the voice of millions, led astray 

By party, interest, prejudice, and fear, 
Can ever waken in my breast dismay, 

Or make me aught but what I am appear^ 

Worms of a day! our duty let us do. 
And bow to truth, eternal truth alone , 

All pride, and selfishness, and strife subdue. 
Be kind to others* faults, and mend our owii^ 
p2 



212 

For ME, I followed where conviction led, 

Sought only peace and right, with even course ; 

Still laboured that the heart might guide the head^ 
And hated enmity, cabal, and force. 

And for the dear dear groupe that croud my board, 

Celestialize my rambles and fire-side. 
For these, my boys and girls, I but implored 

That TRUTH, and only truth, might be their guide. 

Worms of a day ! it is not worth our while 

To live to mental lying, vice, and woe: 
Since pomp and splendour deck the paths of guile, 

O ! let us pomp and splendour still forego. 

I've read their works, and known high-minded men, 
Whose plaudits by the nations have been rung. 

Who've woo'd philosophy, or pour'd the strain, 
Or greatly reason'd, or divinely sung. 

But these, indeed, to thee th&palm must yield;: 
Superior gifts, superior powers were thine ; 

They fade like stars that quit heaven's azure field. 
When bright the beams of morn begin to shine > 

Twas thine to point the means of human weal, 
To rescue man from slavery and crime; 

To all his better passions to appeal. 

His life ennoble, and his thoughts sublimco 



213 

T'was THINE his social happiness to plan, 
His public blessings, private virtues raise ; 

And teaching reason, and the rights of man, 
To all posterity ensure thy praise. 

Twas THINE, by works devoted but to truth, 
Wisdom and life and light to spread below; 

To lead from jarring creeds, and laws uncouth, 
From slavery, superstition, pride, and woe. 

Let THESE thy works immortalize thy fame; 

Let these to purer times thy praise extend, 
Whose grateful sons will hail thy hallow'd name. 

Which scarcely found, iii times corrupt, a friend. 

My boast it is to rank with these, though few ; 

My pride, this humble tribute to bestow ; 
To give to WISDOM, virtue, Paine their due, 

This to MYSELF, to THEE, and truth I owe! 



APPENDIX, 

CONTAINING SOME 

ORIGINAL PIECES IN PROSE AND VERSE, 

BY 

Mr. PAINE. 



Note. — This little production of Mr. Paine is well 
worth attention ; particularly too when millions have been 
and are squandering upon useless land fortifications along 
the coast, and on the works in and about Dover, &c. 

The observations of a great man are always deserving of 
notice; and those which follow carry so complete a convic- 
tion of their propriety and truth along with them, that the 
English reader cannot but be led to reflect on the very 
opposite plans pursued in protecting our own coasts; if 
indeed, that may be called protection which we are now 
adopting. 

One thing most recommendatory of gun-boats has, I 
think, not been sufficiently enlarged upon in Mr. Painc*s 
essay, but which, while we lament that any system of war 
should be necessary, surely speaks highly in favour of them| 



I 



215 



viz. that while they protect a nation from insult and are un- 
doubtedly its best defenders, their size renders it impossible 
for them to go far, and annoy, and attack, and carry con- 
quest, desolation, and misery to distant shores ! 



ON THE COMPARATIVE POWERS AND EXPENC^ 

OP 

SHIPS OF WAR, 
GUN-BOATS, AND FORTIFICATIONS. 

The natural defence by men is common to all nations; 
but artificial defence, as an auxiliary to human strength, 
must be adapted to the local condition and circumstances 
of a country. 

What may be suitable to one country, or in one state 
of circumstances, may not be so in another. 

The United States have a long line of coast, of more 
than two thousand miles, every part of which requires 
defence, because every part is approachable by water. 

The right principle for the United States to go upon, 
as a defence for the coast, is that of combining the great- 
est practical power with the least possible bulk, that the 
whole quantity of power^ may be better distributed through 
l;he several parts of such an extensive coast. 



216 



The power of a ship of war is altogether in the num- 
ber and size of the guns she carries, for the ship of itself 
has no power. 

Ships cannot struggle with each other like animals ; 
and besides this, as half her guns are on one side of the 
ship, and half on the other ; and as she can use only the 
guns on one side at a time, her real power is only equal to 
half her number of guns. A seventy-four can use only 
thirty-seven guns. She must tack about to bring the other 
half into action, and while she is doing this she is defence- 
less and exposed. 

As this is the case with ships of war, a question 
naturally arises therefrom, which is, whether 74 guns, 
or any other number, cannot be more effectually employed, 
and that with much less expence, than by putting them 
all into one ship of such an enormous bulk, that it cannot 
approach a shore either to defend it or attack it ; and 
though the ship can change its place, the whole number of 
guns can be only at one place at a time, and only half that 
number can be used at a time. 

This is a true statement of the case between ships 
of war and gun- boats for the defence of a coast and of 
towns situated near a coast. 

But the case often is, that men are led away by the 
GREATNESS of an idea, and not by the justness of it j 



217 



This is always the case with those who are advocates for 
Havies and large ships."^ 

A gun-boat carrying as heavy metal as a ship of 100 
guns can carry, is a one-gun ship of the line ; and seventy- 
four of them, which would cost much less than a 74-gun 
ship would cost, would be able to blow a 74-gun ship 
out of the water. 

They have in the use of their guns double the power 
of the ship, that is, they have the use of their whole 
number, of seventy-four to thirty-seven. 

Having thus stated the general outlines of the subject, 
I come to particulars. 

That I might have a correct data to go upon with 
respect to ships and gun-boats, I wrote to the head of one 
of the departments at Washington for information on the 
subject. 

The following is the answer I received : — 

'' Calculating the cost of a 74 or 100 gun ship from 
the actual cost of the ship United States of 44 guns, built 



* A nation having a navy is a temptation for au enemy to 
go to war with it. Thus, if America had had a navy, England 
would have been at war with her long ago, to attack or obtain that 
navy ! — Ed. 



218 



at Philadelphia, between the years 1795 and 1798, which 
amounted to 300,000 dollars, it may be presumed, that 
a 74-gun ship would cost 500,000 dollars, and a 100 
gun ship 700,000 dollars. 

" Gun-boats calculated merely for the defence of 
harbours and rivers will, on an average, cost about 4000 
dollars each, when fit to receive the crew and provisions/' 

On the data here given, I proceed to state compa,- 
rative calculations respecting ships and gun-boats. 

The ship United States cost 300,000 dollars. Gun- 
boats cost 4000 dollars each, consequently the 300,000 
dollars expended on the ship, for the purpose of getting 
use of 44 guns, and those most heavy metal, would have 
built SEVENTY-FIVE guu-boats, each carrying a cannon of 
the same weight of metal that a ship of 100 guns can carry. 

The difference therefore is, that the gun-boats give 
the use of thirty-one guns, heavy metal, more than can be 
obtained by the ship, and the expenses in both cases 
equal. 

A 74-gun ship costs 500,000 dollars. The same 
money would build 125 gun-boats. The gain by gun- 
boats is the use of forty-one more guns, than can be 
obtained by expending the money on a ship of 74 guns. 

The cost of an 100-guu ship is 700,000 dollars. This 
money would build 175 gun-boats; the gain therefore' 



219 



by the boats is the use of seventy-five guns more than 
by the ship. 

Though I had a general impression ever since 1 had 
the knowledge of gun-boats, that any given sum would go 
farther in building gun-boats than in building ships of war, 
iSind that gun-boats were preferable to ships for home 
defence, I did not suppose the difference was so great as 
the calculations above given prove them to be, for it 
is almost double in favour of the gun-boats. It is as 175 
to 100. The cause of this difference is easily explained. 
The fact is, that all that part of the expence in building 
a ship from deck upwards, including masts, yards, sails, 
and rigging, is saved by building gun-boats, which are 
pioved by oars, or a light sail occasionally. 

The difference also, in point of repairs, between ships 
of war and gun-boats, is not only great, but it is greater 
in proportion than their first cost. The repairs of ships of 
war is annually from l-14th to 1-lOth of their first cost. 
The annual repairs of a ship that cost 300,000 dollars, 
will be above 21,000 dollars ; the greatest part of this 
expense is in her sails and rigging, which gun-boats are 
free from. 

The difference also in point of duration is great. 

Gun-boats, when not in use, can be put under shelter, 
and preserved from the weather, but ships cannot; or 
bo^ts can be sunk in the water or mud. This is the 



220 



way the nuts of cider mills for grinding apples are 
preserved. Were they to be exposed to the dry and hot 
air, after coming wet from the mill, they would crack, and 
split, and be good for nothing. But timber under water 
will continue sound for several hundred years, provided 
there be no worms. 

Another advantage in favour of gun-boats, is the 
expedition with which a great number of them can be 
built at once. A hundred may be built as soon as one, 
if there are hands enough to set about them separately. 
They do not require preparations for building them that 
ships require, nor deep water to launch them in. They 
can be built on the shore of shallow waters ; or they 
mio^ht be framed in the woods, or forests, and the parts 
brought separately down, and put together on the shore. 
But ships take up a long time in building. 

The ship United States took up two whole years, 
1796 and 1797, and part of the years 1795 and 1798, and 
all this for the purpose of getting the use of 44 guns, and 
those not heavy metal. 

This foolish affair was not in the days of the present 
administration. 

Ships and gun-boats are for different services. Ships 
are for distant expeditions ; gun-boats for home defence. 
The one for the ocean, the other for the shore. 

Gun-boats being moved by oars cannot be deprived of 



221 



motion by calms, for the calmer the weather the better 
for the boat. But a hostile ship becalmed in any of our 
waters, can be taken by gun boats moved by oars, let the 
rate of the ship be what it may. A 100-gun man of 
war becalmed is like a giant in a dead palsy ; every 
little fellow can kick him. 

The United States ought to have 500 gun-boat^, 
stationed in different parts of the coast, each carrying a 
thirty-two or thirty-six pounder. Hostile ships would not 
then venture to lie within our waters, were it only for the 
certainty of being sometimes becalmed. They would then 
become prizes, and the insulting bullies on the ocean 
become prisoners in our own waters. 

Having thus stated the comparative powers and ex- 
pence of ships of war and gun-boats, I come to speak of 
fortifications • 

Fortifications may be comprehended under two general 

heads. 

First. Fortified towns ; that is, towns enclosed within 
a fortified polygon, of which there are many on the conti- 
nent of Europe, but not any in England. 

Secondly. Simple forts and batteries. These are 
not formed on the regular principles of fortification, that 
is, they are not formed for the purpose of standing a 
siege as a fortified polygon is. They are for the pur- 



222 



pose of obstructing or annoying the progress of an enemy 
by land or water. 

Batteries are formidable in defending narrow passes, 
by land, such as the passage of a bridge, or of a road cut 
through a rough and craggy mountain, that cannot be 
passed any where else. But they are not formidable in 
defending water passes, because a ship, with a brisk wind 
and tide running at the rate of ten miles an hour, will be 
out of the reach of the fire of the battery in fifteen or 
twenty minutes ; and being a swift moving object all the 
time, it would be a mere chance that any shot struck her. 

When the object of a ship is that of passing a 
battery, for the purpose of attaining or attacking some 
other object, it is not customary for the ship to fire 
at the battery, lest it should disturb her course. Three 
or four men are kept on deck to attend the helm, 
and the rest having nothing to do, go below. 

Duckworth, in passing the Dardanelles up to Con-^ 
stantinople, did not fire at the batteries. 

When batteries, for the defence of water-passes, can 
be erected without any great expence, and the men 
Dot exposed to capture, it may be very proper to have 
them. They may keep off small piratical vessels, but 
they are not to be trusted to for defence. 

Fortifications give, in general, a >delusive idea of 



223 



protection. All our principal losses in the revolutionary 
war were occasioned by trusting to fortifications. 

Fort Washington with a garrison of 2500 men, was 
taken in less than four hours, and the men made prisoners 
of war. The same fate had befallen Fort Lee, on the op- 
posite shore, if General Lee had not moved hastily off, 
and gained Hackinsack bridge. General Lincoln for- 
tified Charleston, in South Carolina, and himself and 
his army were made prisoners of war. 

General Washington began fortifying New York in 
1776. General Howe passed up the East River, landed 
his army at Frog's Point, about twenty miles above the 
city, and marched down upon it ; and had not General 
Washington stole silently and suddenly off on the North 
River side of York Island, himself and his army had 
also been prisoners. 

Trust not to fortifications otherwise than as batteries, 
that can be abandoned at discretion. 

The case however is, that batteries as a water de- 
fence against the passage of ships cannot do much. 
Were any given number of guns to be put in a bat- 
tery for that purpose, and an equal number of the 
same weight of metal put in gun-boats for the 
same purpose, those in the boats would be more ef- 
fectual than those in the battery. 

The reason of this is obvious. A battery is sta- 
p 8 



224 



tionary. Its fire is limited to about two miles, and there 
its power ceases. But every gun-boat moved by oars 
is a moveable fortification, that can follow up its fire, 
and change its place and position as circumstances 
may require ; and besides this, gun-boats in calms 
are the sovereigns of ships. 

As the matter interests the public, and most pro- 
bably will come before congress at its next meeting; 
if the printers in any of the States, after publishing it 
in their newspapers, have a mind to publish it in a 
pamphlet form, together with my former piece on gun- 
boats, they have my consent freely. 

I neither take copy-right nor profit from any 
thing I publish. 

Thomas Paine. 



TWO LETTERS FROM Mr. PAINE, 

IN WHICH HE ALLUDES TO THE 

CIRCUMSTANCE OF BEING SHOT AT. 

New Rochelle, July 9, 1804. 
Fellow Citizen, 

As the weather is now getting hot in New York 
and the people begin to get out of town, you may as 
well come up here and help me to settle my accounts 



225 



With the man "who lives on the place. You will be 
able to do this better than I shall, and in the mean' 
time I can go on with my literary works, without 
having my mind taken oflf by affairs of a different kind. 
I have received a packet from Governor Clinton enclosing 
what I wrote for. If you come up by the stage you 
will stop at the post office, and they will direct you 
the way to the farm. It is only a pleasant walk. I 
send a piece for the Prospect; if the plan mentioned 
in it is pursued, it will open a Way to enlarge and 
give establishment to the deistical church; but of this 
and some other things we will talk when you come 
up, and the sooner the better. 

Your's in friendship, 

Thomas Paine. 

I have not received any newspapers nor any num« 
bers of the Prospect since I have been here. 

Bring my bag up with you. 



New Rochelle, Jan. l6, 1805. 
Esteemed Friend, 

I have received two letters from you, one 
giving an account of your taking Thomas to Mr. 
Fowler, the other dated Jan. 12; I did not answer 
the first, because I hoped to see you the next Satur- 
day or the Saturday after. What you heard of a gun 
being fired into the room is true; Robert and Rachel 



226 



were both gone out to keep christmas eve, and about 
eight o'clock at night the gun was fired; 1 run im- 
mediately out, one of Mr, Dean's boys with me, but 
the person that had done it was gone ; I directly suspected 
who it was, and hallooed to him by name, that he was 
discovered. I did this that the party who fired might know 
1 was on the watch. I cannot find any ball, but whatever 
the gun was charged with passed through about three or 
four inches below the window, making a hole large enough 
fqr a finger to go through ; the muzzle must have been 
very near, as the place is black with the powder, and the 
glass of the window is shattered to pieces. Mr. Shule 
after examining the place, and getting what information 
could be had, issued a warrant to take up Derrick, and 
after examination committed him. He "is now on bail (five 
hundred dollars) to take his trial at the supreme court in 
May next. Derrick owes me forty-eight dollars for which 
T have his note, and he was to work it out in making stone 
fence which he has not even begun, and besides this I 
have had to pay forty-two pounds eleven shillings for 
"which I had passed my word for him at Mr. Pelton's 
store. Derrick borrowed the gun under pretence of giving 
Mrs. Bayeaux a christmas gun. He was with Purdy 
about two hours before the attack on the house was made, 
and he came from thence to Dean's half drunk, and 
brought with him a bottle of rum, and Purdy wa'' with him 
when he was taken up. 

i am exceedingly well in health, and shall always be 



22t 



glad to see you. Hubbs tells me that your horse is get- 
ting better. Mr. Shule sent for the horse and took him 
when the first snow came, but he leaped the fences and 
came back. Hubbs says there is a bone broke. If this be 
the case I suppose he has broke or cracked it in leaping a 
fence when he was lame of the other hind leg, and hung 
with his hind legs in the fence. I am glad to hear what 
you tell me of Thomas. He shall not want for any thing 
that is necessary if he be a good boy, for he has no friend 
but me. You have not given me any account about the 
meeting house. Remember me to our friends. 

Yoar*s in friendship^ 

Thomas Paine. 



TO FORGETFULiSTESS, 

FROM 

*The Castle in The Air/ to ' The Little Corner of the World/ 

Memory, like a beauty that is always present to hear 
herself flattered, is flattered by every one. But the absent 
and silent goddess, Forgetfulness, has no votaries, and is 
never thought of: yet w^e owe her much. She is the god- 
dess of ease, tho not of pleasure. 

When the mind is like a room hung with black, and 
every corner of it crouded with the most horrid images 

a 2 



228 



imagination can create, this kind, speechless goddess of a 
maid, Forgetfuhiess, is following us night and day willt 
her opium wand, and gently touching first one, and then 
another, benumbs them into rest, and at last glides them 
away with the silence of a departing shadow. It is thus 
the tortured mind is restored to the cahn condition of ease, 
and fitted for happiness. 

How dismal must the picture of life appear to the 
mind in that dreadful moment, when it resolves on dark- 
ness, and to die! One can scarcely believe such a choice 
was possible. Yet how many of the young and beautiful, 
timid in every thing else, and formed for delight, have 
shut their eyes upon the world, and made the waters their 
sepulchral bed ! Ah ! would they in that crisis, when life 
and death are both before them, and each within their 
reach, would they but think, or try to think, that Forget- 
fuhiess will come to their relief, and lull them into ease, 
they could stay their hand, and lay hold of life. But there 
is a necromancy in wretchedness that entombs the mind, 
and increases the misery, by shutting out every ray of light 
and hope. It makes the wretched falsely believe they will 
be wretched ever. It is the most fatal of all dangerous 
delusions ; and it is only when this necromantic night-mare 
of the mind begins to vanish, by being resisted, tijat it is 
discovered to be but a tyrannic spectre. All grief, like all 
things else, will yield to the obliterating power of time. 
While despair is preying on the mind, time and its effects 
are preying on despair ; and certain it is, the dismal vision 



229 



>vill fade away, and Forgetfulness with her sister Ease, will 
change the scene. Then let not the wretclied be rash, 
but wait, painful as the struggle may be, the arrival of 
Forgetfulness; for it will certainly arrive. 

I have twice been present at the scene of attempted 
suicide. The one a love-distracted girl in England, the 
other of a patriotic friend in France; and as the circum- 
stances of each are strongly pictured in my memory, I 
will relate them to you. They will in some measure cor- 
roborate what I have said of Forgetfulness. 

About the year 1766, I was in Lincolnshire, in Eng- 
land, and on a visit at the house of a widow lady, Mrs. 
E — : — , at a small village in th€ fens of that county. It 

was in summer; and one evening after supper, Mrs. E 

^nd myself went to take a turn in the garden. It was about 
eleven o'clock, and to avoid the night air of the fens, we were 
walking in a bower, shaded over with hazel-bushes. On 
a sudden, she screamed out, and cried " Lord ! look 
look!" I cast my eyes through the openings of the hazel- 
bushes, in the direction she was looking, and saw a white 
shapeless iigure, without head or arms, moving along one 
of the walks at some distance from us. I quitted Mrs. 

E , and went after it. When I got into the walk 

where the figure was, and was following it, it took up ano- 
ther walk. There was a holly bush in the corner of the two 
walks, which, it being night, I did not observe ; and as I 
continued to step forward, the holly-bush came in a straight 



230 



line between me and the figure, and I lost sight of it ; and a8 
1 passed along one walk, and the figure the other, the holly 
bush still continued to intercept tlie view, so as to give the 
appearance that the figure had vanished. When \ came to 
the corner of the two walks, I cau2;ht sight of it aoain, and 
coming up with it, I reached out my hand to touch it ; 
^nd in the act of doing this the idea struck me. Will my 
hand pass through the air, or shall I feel any thing? Less 
than a moment would decide this, and my hand rested on 
the shoulder of a human figure. I spoke, but do not recol- 
lect what I said. It answered in a low voice, " Pray let 
me alone." 1 then knew who it w as. It was a young lady 

who was on a visit to Mrs- E- , and who, when we 

sat down to supper, said she found herself extremely ill, 

and w^ould go to bed. I called to Mrs. E , who 

came, and I said to her, " It is Miss N — - — ." Mrs. E 

said, ** My God ! I hope you are not going to do yourself 

any hurt;" for Mrs. E suspected something. She 

replied with pathetic melancholy, " Life has not one plea- 
sure for me." We got her into the house, and Mrs. E 

took her to sleep with her. 

The case was, the man whom she expected to be mar- 
ried to, had forsaken her, and when she heard he was to be 
married to another, the shock appeared to her to be too 
great to be borne. She had retired, as I have said, to her 
room, and when she supposed all the family were gone to 

bed, (which would have been the case, if Mrs. E and 

1 had not walked into the garden) she undressed herself, and 



231 



tied ber apron over her head ; which descending below 
her waist gave her the sliapeless figure I have spoken of. 

Aided by the obscurity of ahnost midnight, and with 
this and a white under petticoat and sHppers, for she had 
taken out her buckles, and pat them at the servant maid's 
door, 1 suppose as a keepsake, she came down stairs, 
and was going to drow^i herself in a pond at the bottom 
of the garden, towards which she was going when Mrs, 

E screamed out. We found afterwards, that she 

had heard the scream, and that was the cause of her 
changing her walk. 

By gentle usage, and leading her into subjects that 
might, without doing violence to her feelings, and without 
letting her see the direct intention of it, steal her as it were 
from the horror she was in, (and 1 felt a compassionate, 
earnest disposition to do it, for she was a good girl) she 
recovered her former cheerfulness, and was afterwards the 
happy wife, and the mother of a family. 

The other case, and the conclusion in my next. 

In Paris, in 1793, I had lodgings in the Rue 
Fauxbourg, St. Denis, No. 03. They were the most 
agreeable for situation of any I ever had in Paris, except 
that they were too remote from the convention, of 
which 1 was then a member. But this was recompenced 
by their being also remote from the alarms and confusion 



232 



into which the interior of Paris was then often thrown. 
The news of those things used to arrive to us, as if we 
were in a state of tranquillity in the country. The house, 
which was enclosed by a wall and gateway from the 
street, was a good deal like an old mansion farm-house, 
and the court-yard was like a farm-yard stocked with 
fowls, ducks, turkies, and geese; which for amusement 
we used to feed out of the parlour window on the ground 
floor. There were some hutches for rabbits and a sty 
with two pigs. Beyond, was a garden of more than an 
acre of ground, well laid out, and stocked wiih e.scellent 
fruit trees. The orange, apricot, and green-gage plumb, 
were the best 1 ever tasted ; and it is the only place 
where I saw the wild cucumber. The place had formerly 
been occupied by some curious person. 

My apartments consisted of three rooms ; the first, for 
wood, water, &c. with an old fashioned closet chest, high 
enough to hang up cloihes in; die next was the bed 
room; and beyond it the sittnig joom, which looked into 
the garden thro a glass door; and on the outside there was 
a small landing place railed in, and a flight of narrow stairs 
almost hidden by the vines that grew over it, by which I 
could descend into the garden, without going down stairs 
thro the house. 1 am trying by description to njake you see 
the place in your mind, because it wdl assist the story I 
have to tell ; and Vi hich 1 think you can do, because you 

ouce called upon me there on account of Sir , 

who was then, as I was soon afterwards, in arrestation. But 



233 



it was winter when you came, and it is a summer scene I 
am describing. 

vr 9P 'tr ^P 

1 went into my chamber to write and sign a certificate 
for them,* which I intended to take to the guard house 
to obtain iheir release. Just as 1 had finished it a man 
came into my room dressed in the Parisian uniform of 
a captain, and spoke to me in good English, and with 
a good address. He told me that two young men, 
Englishmen, were arrested and detained in the guard- 
house, and that the section, (meaning those who repre- 
sented and acted for the section) had sent him to ask me 
if I knew them, in which case they vvouM be liberated. 
This matter being soon settled between us, he talked 
to me about the revolution, and something about the 
' Rights of Man' Mhich he had read in English ; and at 
parting offered me in a polite and civil manner his services. 
And who do you think the man was that offered me 
his services ? It was no other than the public execu- 
tioner Samson, who guillotined the king and all who 
were guillotined in Paris; and who lived in the same 
section and in the same street with me. 



As to myself, I used to find some relief by walking 
alone in the garden after dark, and cursing with hearty 
good-will the authors of that terrible system that had 

^ >^r. Paine here alludes to two iiiends who were under arrest. Ed. 



234 



turqed the character of the revolution I had been proud 
to defend. 

I went but little to the convention, and then only to 
make my appearance ; because I found it impossible to 
join in their tremendous decrees, and useless and danger- 
ous to oppose them. My having voted and spoken 
extensively, more so than any other member, against the 
execution of the king, had already fixed a mark upon me : 
neither dared any of my associates in the convention to 
translate and speak iii French for me any thing I might 
have dared to have written. 



Pen and ink were then of no use to me : no good 
could be done by writing, and no printer dared to print ; 
and whatever 1 might have written for my private amuse- 
ment, as anecdotes of the times, would have been con- 
tinually exposed to be examined, and tortured into any 
meaning that the rage of party might fix upon it; and 
as to softer subjects, my heart was in distress at the 
fate of my friends, and my harp was hung upon the 
weeping willows. 

As it was summer we spent most of our time in 
the garden and passed it away in those childish amuse- 
ments that serve to keep reflection from the mind, 
such as marbles, scotch-hops, battledores, &c. at which 
we we re all pretty expert. 



I 



235 



In this retired manner we reniained about six or 
seven weeks, and our landlord went every evening into 
tlie city to bring us the news of the day and the evening 
journal. 

I have now, my ' Little Corner of the World,' led 
you on, step by step, to the scene that makes the sequel of 
this narrative, iand 1 will put that scene before your eyes. 
Yoa shall see it in description as I saw it in fact.* 



He recovered, and being anxious to get out of France, 
a passport was obtained for him and Mr. Choppiu: they 
received it late in the evening, and set off next morning for 
Basle before four, from which place I had a letter from 
them, highly pleased with their escape from France, 
into which they had entered with an enthusiasm of patriotic 
devotion. Ah France ! thou hast runied the character of 
a revolution virtuously begun, and destroyed those who 
produced it. 1 might almost say like Job's servant, 
'alid I only am escaped.' 

Two days after they were gone I heard a rapping at 
the gate, and looking out of the window of the bed- 
room I saw the landlord going with the candle to the 



* The second instance of attempted suicide is omitted from 
motives of personal delicacy. ]VIr. Paine's letter is continued, as 
it contains an account of his mode of life before he was sent to 
prisoD, &c. — Ed. 



236 



gate, which he opened, and a guard with musquets and 
fixed bayonets entered. I went to bed again, and made 
up my mind for prison, for I was then the only lodger. 

It was a guard to take up , but I thank 

God they were out of their reach. 

The guard came about a month after, in the night, 
and took away the landlord, Georgeit; and the scene in 
the house finished with the arrestation of myself. This 
was soon after you called on me, and sorry I was it 

was not in my power to render to the service 

that you asked. 

I have now fulfilled my engagement, and I hope your 

expectation, in relating the case of , landed back 

on the shore of life, by the mistake of the pilot, who was 
conducting him out ; and preserved afterwards from 
prison, perhaps a worse fate, without knowing it 
himself. 

You say a story cannot be too melancholy for you. 
This is interesting and affecting, but not melancholy. It 
may raise in your mind a sympathetic sentiment in reading 
it ; and though it niay start a tear of pity, you will not 
have a tear of sorrow to drop on the page. 



Here, my contemplative correspondent, let us stop 



237 



and look back upon the scene. The matters here 
related being all facts, are strongly pictured in my mind, 
and in this sense, Forgetfulness does not apply. But facts 
and feelings are distinct things, and it is against feelings 
that the opium wand of Forgetfulness draws us into ease. 
Look back on any scene or subject that once gave you 
distress, for all of us have felt some, and you will find, 
that though the remembrance of the fact is not extinct 
in your memory, the feeling is extinct in your mind. 
You can remember when you had felt distress, but yoii 
cannot feel that distress again, and perhaps will wonder 
you felt it then. If is like a shadow that loses itself 
by light. 

It is often difficult to know what is a misfortune: 
that which we feel as a great one to day, may be the 
means of turning aside our steps into some new path that 
leads to happiness yet unknown. In tracing the scenes 
of my own life, I can discover that the condition I 
now enjoy, which is sweet to me, and will be more so 
when 1 get to America, except by the loss of your society, 
has been produced, in the first instance, in my being 
disappointed in former projects. Under that impene- 
trable veil futurity we know not what is concea|ed, 
and the day to arrive is hidden from us. Turning then 
our thoughts to those cases of despair that lead to suicide, 
when, ^ the miod' as you say ^ neither sees nor hears, and 
holds council only with itself; when the very idea of 
consolation would add to the torture, and self-destruction 



rM 



js its only aim/ what, it may be asked, is the best advicCji 
what the best relief? I answer, seek it not in reason, fo( 
the mind is at war with reason, and to reason against feel-^ 
itigs is as vain as to reason against fire : it serves only to 
torture the torture, by adding reproach to horror. All 
reasoning with ourselves in such cases acts upon us like 
the reason of another person, which however kindly done, 
serves but to insult the misery we suffer. If reason could 
remove the pain, reason would have prevented it. If she 
could not do the one, how is she to perform the other ? 
In all such cases we must look upon reason as dispossessed 
of her empire, by a revolt of the mind. She retires her- 
self to a distance to weep, and the ebony sceptre of despair 
rules alone. All that reason can do is to suggest, to hint 
a thought, to signify a wish, to cast now and then a kind 
of bewailing look, to hold up, when she can catch the 
eye, the miniature shaded portrait of Hope ; and tho 
dethroned, and can dictate no more, to wait upon us in 
the humble station of a hand-maid. 



A Letter from Mr. Paine to a Gentleman at 
JFashington. 

New Rochelle, March 20, 1806. 

I will inform you of what I know respecting 
General Miranda, with whom I first became acquainted at 



239 



New York about the year 1783. He is a man of talents 
and enterprize, a Mexican by birth, and the whole of his 
life has been a life of adventures. 

I went to Europe from New York in April 1787. 
Mr. Jefferson was then minister from America to France, 
and Mr. Littlepage a Virginian (whom John Jay knows) 
was agent for the king of Poland, at Paris. 

Mr. Littlepage was a young man of extraordinary 
talents, and I first met with him at Mr. Jefferson's house at 
dinner. By his intimacy with the king of Poland, to whom 
also he was chamberlain, he became well acquainted with 
the plans and projects of the northern powers of Europe. 
He told me of Miranda's getting himself introduced to the 
Empress Catharine of Russia, and obtaining a sum of 
money from her, four thousand pounds sterling ; but it did 
not appear to me what the project was for which the mo- 
ney was given : it appeared as a kind of retaining fee. 

After I had published the first part of the ' Rights of 
Man' in England, in the year 1791, I met Miranda at the 
house of Turnbuli and Forbes, merchants, Devonshire 
square, London. He had been a little time before tliis 
in the employ of Mr. Pitt, with respect to Nootka Sound, 
but I did not at that time know it ; and I will, in the course 
of this letter, inform you how this connection between 
Pitt and Miranda ended ; for I know it of my own know- 
ledge. 



240 



I published the second part of the ' Rights of Mart* 
in London in February 1792, and I continued in London 
till I was elected a member of the French convention, in 
September of that year; and went from London to Paris 
to take my seat in the convention, which was to meet the 
20th of that month : I arrived at Paris on the 19th. 

After the convention met Miranda came to Paris, and 
was appointed general of the French army, under Ge- 
neral Dumourier; but as the affairs of that army went 
wrong in the beginning of the year 1792, Miranda was 
suspected, and was brought under arrest to Paris to take 
his trial. 

He summoned me to appear to his character, and also 
a Mr. Thomas Christie, connected with the house of Turn- 
bull and Forbes. 

I gave my testimony as I believed, which was, that his 
leading object was, and had been, the emancipation of his 
country, Mexico, from the bondage of Spain; for I did 
not at that time know of his engagements with PJtt. Mr. 
Christie's evidence went to shew that Miranda did not come 
to France as a necessitous adventurer ; that he came from 
public spirited motives, and that he had a large sum of 
money in the hands of Turnbuli and Forbes. The house 
of Turnbull and Forbes was then in a contract to sup- 
ply Paris with flour. Miranda was acquitted. 

A few days after his acquittal he came to see me, and 



241 



a few days afterwards I returned the visit. He seetned 
desirous of satisfying me that he was independent, and that 
he had money in the hands of TurnbuU and Forbes. He 
did not tell me of his affair with old Catharine of Russia, 
nor did 1 tell him that 1 knew of it. 

But he entered into conversation with respect to 
Nootka Sound, and put into my hands several letters of 
Mr. Pitt's to him on that subject; amongst which was 
one that I believe he gave me by mistake, for when I had 
opened it and was beginning to read it, he put forth his 
hand and said, ' O that is not the letter I intended;' but 
as the letter was short 1 soon got through it, and then 
returned it to him without making any remarks upon it. 

The dispute with Spain about Nootka Sound was 
then compromised; and Pitt compromised with Miranda 
for his services by giving him twelve hundred pounds 
sterling, for this was the contents of the letter. 

Now if it be true that Miranda brought with him a 
credit upon certain persons in New York for sixty thou- 
sand pounds sterling, it is not difficult to suppose from 
what quarter the credit came ; for the opening of any 
proposals between Pitt and Miranda was already made 
by the affair of Nootka Sound. 

Miranda was in Paris when Mr. Monroe arrived there 
as minister; and as Miranda wanted to get acquainted 
with him, I cautioned Mr. Monroe against him, and told 

R 



242 



him of the affair of Nootka Sound, and the twelve hHTr- 
dred pounds. 

You are at libert}' to make what use you please of this^ 
letter, and with my name to it. 

Thomas Paine, 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS, 

Note. — Mr. Carlile has just published a little pam- 
phlet of Mr. Paine's poetry, the whole of which, with 
a few others added in this collection, have been in my 
possession many years. I have omitted one very witty 
piece that Mr. Carlile has printed, ' A Commentary on 
the Eastern Wise Men,^ it ranging not with my plan; 
also the ' British Constitution,' not knowing it to be Mr. 
Paine's. 



SONG, 

Tune. — Rule Britannia. 

Hail great republic of the world. 

Which rear'd, which rear'd, her empire in tiie west, 
Where fam'd Columbus*, Columbus' flag unfurl'd. 

Gave tortured Europe scenes of rest; 



243 

Be thou for ever, for ever, great and free, 
The land of Love, and Liberty ! 

Beneath thy spreading, mantling vine, 

Beside, beside each flow^ery grove, and spring. 
And where thy lofty, thy lofty mountains shine, 
May all thy sons, and fair ones sing, 

Be thou for ever, for ever, great and free. 
The land of Loye, and Liberty ! 

From thee, may hellish Discord prowl. 

With all, with all her dark, and hateful train ; 
And whilst thy mighty, thy mighty waters roll. 
May heaven descended Concord reign. 

Be thou for ever, for ever, great and free, 
The land of Love, and Liberty ! 

Where'er the Atlantic surges lave. 

Or sea, or sea, the human eye delights. 
There may thy starry, thy starry standard wave, 
The Constellation of thy Rights! 
Be thou for ever, for ever, great and free, 
The land of Love, and Liberty I 

May ages as they rise proclaim. 

The glories, the glories of thy natal day ; 
And states from thy, from thy exalted name. 
Learn how to rule, and to obey. 

Be thou for ever, for ever great and free, 
The land of Love, and Liberty ! 
E 2 



244 

Let Laureats make their Birth-days knowif^ 

Or how, or how, war's thunderbolts are hurl'd y 
Tis ours the charter, the charter, ours alone, 
To shig the Birth-day of a world ! 

Be thou for ever, for ever, great and free, 
The land of Love and Liberty ! 



THE BOSTON PATRIOTIC SONG. 



Tu7ie. — Anacreon in Heaven, 



Ye Sons of Columbia who bravely have fought. 

For those rights which unstain'd from your sires have 
descended. 
May you long taste the blessings your valour has bought. 
And your sons reap the soil which their fathers defended ;. 
Mid the reign of mild peace, 
May your nation increase, 
With the glory of Rome, and the wisdom of Greece. 

CHORUS. 

And ne^er may the sons of Columbia be slaves, 
While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves. 

In a clime whose rich vales feed the marts of the world. 
Whose shores are unshaken by Europe's commotion ; 
The trident of commerce should never be hurl'd, 
To increase the legitimate power of the ocean ; 
But should pirates invade, 
Though in thunder array'd. 
Let your cannon declare the free charter of trade. 



245 



CHORUS. 

For ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves, 
While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves. 

The fame of our arms, of our laws the mild sway, 

Had justly ennobled our nation in story. 
Till the dark clouds of fiction obscured our bright day, 
And envellopM the sun of American glory; 
But let traitors be told. 
Who their country have ^old. 
And bartered their God, for his image in gold, 

CHORUS. 

That ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves. 
While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves. 

While France her huge limbs bathes recumbent in blood, 

And society's base tlireats with wide dissolution ; 
May Peace like the dove, who return'd from the flood, 
Find an Ark of abode in our mild Constitution ; 
But tho peace is our aim. 
Yet the boon we disclaim, 
If bought by our Sovereignty, Justice, or Fame. 

CHORUS. 

For ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves. 
While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves. 

'Tis the fire of the flint each American warms, 
Let Rome's haughty victors beware of collision ! 

Let them bring all the vassals of Europe in arms. 
We're a World by ourselves, and disdain a division ; 



246 



While with patriot pride, 
To our laws we're allied, 
No foe can subdue us, no faction divide ; 

CHORUS. 

For ne*er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves, 
While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves. 

Our mountains are crown'd with imperial oak. 

Whose roots like our Liberty ages have nourish'd. 
But long e*er the nation submits to the yoke. 

Not a tree shall be left on the soil where it flourish'd. 
Should invasion impend. 
Every grove would descend. 
From the hill tops they shaded, our shores to defend. 

CHORUS. 

Forne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves. 
While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves. 

Let our patriots destroy vile anarchy's worm. 

Lest our liberty's growth should be checkM by corrosion, 
Then let clouds thicken round us, we heed not the storm, 
Our earth fears no shock, but the earth's own explosion. 
Foes assail us in vain, 
Tho their fleets bridge the main, 
For our altars, and claims, with our lives we'll maintain. 

CHORUS. 

For ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves. 
While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves. 



247 



Sliould the tempest of war overshadow our land, 

Its bolts can ne'er rend Freedom's temple asunder; 
For unmoved at its portal would Washington stand, 
And repulse with his breast the assaults of the thunder, 
His sword from its sleep, 
In its scabbard would leap. 
And conduct with its point every flash to the deep. 

CHORUS. 

For ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves, 
While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves. 

Let Fame to the world, sound American's voice^ 

No intrigue can her sons from their government sever ; 
Its wise regulations, and laws are their choice. 
And shall flourish till Liberty, slumber for ever. 
Then unite heart and hand. 
Like Leonidas' band; 
And swear by the God of the ocean, and land ; 

CHORUS, 

That ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves. 
While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves. 



SONG. 

Tune — Anacreon in Heaven. 



To Columbia, who gladly reclined at her ease. 
On Atlantic's broad bosom, lie smiling in peace, 



24a 



Minerva flew hastily, sent from above, 

-And addrest her this message from thundering Jove : 

Rouse, quickly awake. 

Your Freedom's at stake. 
Storms arise, your renown'd Independence to shake, 
Then lose not a moment, my aid I will lend, 
If your sons will assemble your Rights to defend. 

Roused Columbia rose up, and indignant declared. 
That no nation she had wrong'd, and no nation she fear'd, 
That she wished not for war, but if war were her fate, 
She would rally up souls independent and great. 

Then tell mighty Jove, 

That we quickly will prove. 
We deserve the protection he'll send from above ; 
For ne'er shall the sons of America bend. 
But united their Rights and their Freedom defend. 

Minerva smiled cheerfully as she withdrew, 
Enraptured to find her Americans true, 
*' For, said she, our sly Mercury oft times reports. 
That your sons are divided" — Columbia retorts, 

" Tell that vile god of thieves. 

His report but deceives, 
And we care not what madman such nonsense believes. 
For ne'er shall the sons of America bend. 
But united their Rights and their Freedom defend." 

Jove rejoiced in Columbia such union to see. 
And swore by old Styx she deserved to be free ; 



249 



Then assembled the Gods, who all gave consent, 
Their assistance if needful her ill to prevent; 

Mars arose, shook his armour, 

And swore his old Farmer 
Should ne'er in his country see ought that could harm her. 
For ne'er should the sons of America bend, 
But united their Rights and their Freedom defend. 

Minerva resolved that her Mgis she'd lend. 
And Apollo declared he their cause would defend, 
Old Vulcan an armour would forge for their aid, 
More firm than the one for Achilles he made. 

Jove vow'd he'd prepare, 

A compound most rare, 
Of courage, and union, a bountiful share ; 
And swore ne'er shall the sons of America bend. 
But their Rights and their Freedom most firmly defend. 

Ye sons of Columbia then join hand in hand. 

Divided we fall, but united we stand ; 

Tis ours to determine, tis ours to decree, 

That in peace we will live Independent and Free; 

And should from afar 

Break the horrors of war. 
We'll always be ready at once to declare. 
That ne'er will the sons of America bend. 
But united their Rights and their Freedom defend. 



^50 



The following story, ridiculous as it is, is a fact. A farmer at 
New Shoreham, near Brighthelrastone, having voted at an elec- 
tion for a member ©f parliament contrary to the pleasure of three 
neighbouring justices, they took revenge on his dog, which they 
caused to be hanged, for starting a hare upon the high road. 



FARMER SHORT'S DOG, PORTER, 

A TALE. 

Three justices (so says my tale) 
Once met upon the public weal. 
For learning, law, and parts profound. 
Their fame was spread the county round ; 
Each by his wondrous art could tell 
Of things as strange, as Sydrophel ; 
Or by the help of sturdy ale. 
So cleverly could tell a tale. 
That half the gaping standers by 
Would laugh aloud ; the rest would cry. 
Or by the help of nobler wine. 
Would knotty points so nice define. 
That in an instant right was wrong, 
Yet did not hold that station long, 
For while they talk'd of wrong and right. 
The question vanisht out of sight. 
Each knew by practice where to turn 
To every powerful page in Burn, 
And could by help of note and book 
Talk law like Littleton and Coke. 



251 

Each knew by instinct when and where 

A farmer caught or kilPd a hare ; 

Could tell if any man had got 

One hundred pounds per ann. or not ; 

Or what was greater, could divine 

If it was only ninety-nine. 

For when the hundred wanted one^ 

They took away the owner's gun. 

Knew by the leering of an eye 
If girls had lost their chastity, 
And if they had not — would divine 
Some way to make their virtue shine. 

These learned brothers being assembled 
(At which the country fear'd and trembled), 
A warrant sent to bring before 'em. 
One Farmer Short, who dwelt at Shoreham, 
Upon a great and heavy charge. 
Which we shall here relate at large. 
That those who were not there may read, 
In after days the mighty deed : 

Viz. 
" That he," the 'foresaid " Farmer Short, 
" Being by the devil moved, had not 
" One hundred pounds per annum got ; 
" That having not (in form likewise) 
" The fear of God before his eyes, 



i 



252 

" By force and arms did keep and cherish, 

" Within the aforesaid town and parish, 

" i\gainst the statute so provided, 

" A dog. And there the dog abided. 

" That he, this dog, did then and there, 

" Pursue and take and kill a hare ; 

" Which treason was, or some such thing, 

" Against our sovereign lord the king." 

The constable was bid to jog, 
And bring the farmer — not the dog. 

But fortune, whose perpetual wheel 
Grinds disappointment sharp as steel, 
On purpose to attack the pride 
Of those who over others ride, 
So nicely brought the matter round. 
That Farmer Short could not be found. 
Which plunged the bench in so much doubt 
They knew not what to go about. 

But after pondering, pro and con, 
And mighty reasonings thereupon, 
They found on opening of the laws. 
That he, the dog aforesaid, was 
By being privy to the fact. 
Within the meaning of the act, 
And since the master had withdrawn. 
And was the Lord knows whither gone. 
They judged it right, and good in law, 
That he, the dog, should answer for 



253 

Such crimes as they by proof could show 

Were acted by himself and Co. 

The constable again was sent, 

To bring the dog ; or dread the event. 

Poor Porter, right before the door, 
Was guarding of his master's store ; 
And as the constable approached him, 
He caught him by the leg and broach'd him^ 
Poor Porter thought (if dogs can think) 
He came to steal his master's chink* 

The man, by virtue of his staff, 

Bid people help ; not stand and laugh ; 

On vyhich a mighty rout began ; 

Some blamed the dog, and soijie the man. 

Some said he had no business there. 

Some said he had business every where. 

At length the constable prevaiPd, 

And those who would not help were jail'd ; 

And taking Porter by the collar. 

Commanded all the guards to follow. 

The justices received the felon. 
With greater form than I can tell on, 
And quitting now their wine and punch, 
Began upon him, all at once. 

At length a curious quibble rose. 
How far the law could interpose. 



254 

For it was proved, and rightly too, 

That he, the dog, did not pursue 

The hare, with any ill intent. 

But only follow'd by the scent ; 

And she, the hare, by running hard. 

Thro hedge and ditch, without regard. 

Plunged in a pond, and there was drown'd. 

And by a neighboring justice found; 

Wherefore, though he the hare annoy 'd, 

It can't be said that he destroy 'd ; 

It even can't be proved he beat her, 

And " to destroy," must mean, " to eat her/ 

Did you e'er see a gamester struck, 

With all the symptoms of ill luck ? 

Or mark the visage which appears. 

When even hope herself despairs? 

So look'd the bench, and every brother. 

Sad pictures drew^ of one another ; 

Till one more learned than the rest. 

Rose up, and thus the court addressed. 

" Why, gentlemen, I'll tell ye how, 

" Ye may clear up this matter now, 

** For I am of opinion strong 

*' The dog deserves, and should be hung# 

" I'll prove it by as plain a case, 

** As is the nose upon your face. 

" Now if, suppose, a man, or so, 
" Should be obliged, or not to go, 



J 



255 

" About, or not about a case, 

" To this, or that, or t'other place ; 

'' And if another man, for fun, 

" Should fire a pistol (viz.) a gun, 

** And he, the first, by knowing not 

" That he, the second man had shot, 

" Should undesign'dly meet the bullet, 

" Against the throat (in Greek) the gullet, 

" And get such mischief by the hit 

" As should unsense him of his wit, 

" And if that after that he died, 

" D'ye think the other mayn't be tried? 

*' Most sure he must, and hang'd, because 

" He fired his gun against the laws : 

** For 'tis a case most clear and plain, 

" Had A. not shot, B. had not been slain: 

*' So had the dog not chased the hare, 

** She never had been drown'd — that's clear. 

This logic, rhetoric, and wit. 

So nicely did the matter hit. 

That Porter — tho unheard, was cast. 

And in a halter breathed his last. 

The justices adjourned to dine. 

And whet their logic up with wine. 



256 

SONG, 

ON THE DEATH OF GENERAL WOLFE. 



In a mouldering cave where the wretched retreat, 

Britannia sat wasted with care; 
She mourn'd for her Wolfe, and exclaimed against fate, 

And gave herself up to despair. 
The walls of her cell she had sculptured around 

With the feats of her favorite son ; 
And even the dust, as it lay on the ground, 

AVas engraved with the deeds he had done. 

The sire of the Gods from his crystalline throne 

Beheld the disconsolate dame. 
And moved with her tears he sent Mercury down, 

And these were the tidings that came. 
Brita n m a forbear, not a sigh nor a tear 

For thy Wolfe so deservedly loved. 
Your tears shall be changed into triumphs of joy, 

For thy Wolfe is not dead but removed. 

The sons of the East, the proud giants of old, 

Have crept from their darksome abodes. 
And this is the news as in Heaven it was told, 

They were marching to war with the Gods ; 
A council was held in the chambers of Jove, 

And this w as their final decree. 
That Wolfe should be called to the armies above, 

And the charge was entrusted to me. 



I 



^57 

To the plains of Quebec with the orders I flew, 

He begg'd for a moment^s delay ; 
He cry'd, Oh ! forbear, let me victory hear, 

And then thy command I'll obey. 
With a darksome thick film I encompass'd his eyes, 

And bore him away in an urn, 
Lest the fondness he bore to his own native shore. 

Should induce him again to return. 

This Song was written immediately after the Death of General Wolfe. 
At this time a prize was offered for the best Epitaph on that celebrated 
hero. Of these Ej)itaphs I have a manuscript collection of eighteen. Mr. 
Paine entered the list among other competitors, but his matter growing too 
long for an Epitaph, and assuming another shape, he entitled it an Ode; 
and it was so published in the Gentleman's Magazine. It was soon after 
set to music, became a popular song, and was sung;at the Anacreontic and 
other societies. — Ed» 



THE SNOW-DROP AND CRITIC, 

A DIALOGUE. 

To the Editor of the Pennsylvanian Magazine, 1775. 
Sir, 

I have given your very modest " Snow Drop"* what I 
think Shakspeare calls — " a local habitation and a name ;" 
that is, I have made a poet of him, and have sent him to 
take possession of a page in your next magazine : here he 



♦ Introduction or Preface to No. l.—See p. 3. Miscellaneous 
Letters and Essays, Political Works, Vol. II. 

S 



258 



comes disputing with a critic, about tlie propriety of a 
prologue. 

Enter Critic and Snow Dro 
CRITIC. 
Prologues to magazines ! — the man is mad, 
No magazine, a prologue ever had ; 
But let us hear, what new, and mighty things. 
Your wonder working magic fancy brings. 

SNOW-DROP. 
Bit by the muse in an unlucky hour, 
I*ve left myself at home, and turn'd a flower ; 
And thus disguised came forth to tell my tale, 
A plain white Snow Drop gather'd from the vale ; 
I come to sing that summer is at hand, 
The summer time of wit you '11 understand ; 
And that this garden of our magazine. 
Will soon exhibit such a pleasing scene. 
That even critics shall admire the show. 
If their good grace will give us time to grow ; 
Beneath the surface of the parent earth. 
We Ve various seeds just struggling into birth ; 
Plants, fruits, and flowers, and all the smiling race^ 
That can the orchard, or the garden grace ; 
Our numbers Sir, so vast ano^endless are. 
That when in full complexion we appear; 
Each eye, each hand, shall pluck what suits its taste, 
And every palate shall enjoy a feast ; 
The Rose, and Lily, shall address the fair, 
And whisper sweetly out, '^ My dears, take care ;" 



259 



With sterling worth the Plant of Sense shall rise, 
And teach the curious to philosophize ; 
The keen-eyed wit shall claim the Scented Briar, 
And sober cits the Solid Grain admire; 
While generous juices sparkling from the Vine, 
Shall warm the audience till they cry — divine ! 
And when the scenes of one gay month are o'er, 
Shall clap their hands, and shout — encore ! encore ! 

CRITIC. 
All this is mighty fine ! but prithee when. 
The frost returns, how fight ye then your men ? 

SNOW-DROP. 
I'll tell you, sir ! we'll garnish out the scenes, 
With stately rows of hardy Evergreens, 
Trees that will bear the frost and deck their tops 
With everlasting flowers, like diamond drops. 
We '11 draw, and paint, and carve, with so much skill. 
That wondering wits shall cry, diviner still I 

CRITIC. 
Better, and better, yet ! but now suppose. 
Some critic wight in mighty verse, or prose, 
Should draw his gray goose weapon, dipt in gall, 
And mow ye down Plants, Flowers, Trees, and All. 

SNOW-DROP. 
Why then, we'll die like Flowers of sweet Perfumk/ 
And yield a fragrance, even in the Tomb ! 

s2 



2(30 " 
IMPROMPTU 

ON 

BACHELORS' HALL, 

At Philadelphia, being destroyed by Lightning, 1775. 

Fair Venus so often was mist from the skies, 
And Bacchus as frequently absent likewise, 
That the synod began to enquire out the reason. 
Suspecting the culprits were plotting of treagon. 
At length it was found they had open'd a ball 
At a place by the mortals calFd Bachelors' Hall; 
Where Venus disclosed every fun she could think of. 
And Bacchus made nectar for mortals to drink of. 
Jove highly displeas'd at such riotous doings, 
Sent Time to reduce the whole building to ruins; 
But Time was so slack with his traces and dashes, 
That Jove in a passion consumed it to ashes. 



LIBERTY TREE, 

A Song, \Tritten early in the American Revolution. 



Tune — " Gods of the Greeks. 



In a chariot of light, from the regions of day, 

The Goddess of Liberty came. 

Ten thousand celestials directed her way, 

And hither conducted the dame. 



261 

A fair budding branch from the gardens above, 

Where millions with millions agree, 
She brought in her hand as a pledge of her love, 

And the plant she named Liberty Tree. 

The celestial exotic struck deep in the ground. 

Like a native it flourished and bore : 
The fame of its fruit drew the nations around, 

To seek out this peaceable shore. 
Unmindful of names or distinctions they came, 

For freemen like brothers agree; 
With one spirit endued, they one friendship pursued, 

And their temple was Liberty Tree. 

Beneath this fair tree, like the patriarchs of old, 

Their bread in contentment they ate, 
Unvexed with the troubles of silver or gold. 

The cares of the grand and the great. 
With timber and tar they Old England supplied. 

And supported her power oil the sea : 
Her battles they fought, without getting a groat, 

For the honour of Liberty Tree. 

But hear, O ye swains (tis a tale most profane). 

How all the tyrannical powers, 
King, commons, and lords, are uniting amain. 

To cut down this guardian of ours. 
From the east to the west blow the trumpet to arms, 

Thro the land let the sound of it flee : 
Let the far and the near all unite with a cheer, 

In defence of our Liberty Tree. 



262 



VERSES TO A FRIEND, 
AFTER A LONG CONVERSATION ON WAR. 



The rain pours down, the city looks forlorn, 
And gloomy subjects suit the howling morn ; 
Close by my fire, with door and window fast, 
And safely shelter'd from the driving blast. 
To gayer thoughts I bid a day's adieu, 
To spend a scene of solitude with you. 

So oft has black revenge engrossed the care 
Of all the leisure hours man finds to spare ; 
So oft has guilt in all her thousand dens, 
Caird for the vengeance of chastising pens ; 
That while I fain would ease my heart on you, 
No thought is left untold, no passion new. 

From flight to flight the mental path appears, 
Worn with the steps of near six thousand years. 
And fill'd throughout with every scene of pain, 
From modern murderers down to murderous Cain, 
Alike in cruelty, alike in hate. 
In guilt alike, but more ahke in fate. 
Cursed supremely for the blood they drew. 
Each from the rising world, while each was ne^. 



263 



Go, men of blood! true likeness of the first, 
And strew your blasted heads with homely dust : 
In ashes sit — in wretched sackcloth weep, 
And with unpitied sorrows cease to sleep. 
Go haunt the tombs, and single out the place 
Where earth itself shall suffer a disgrace. 
Go spell the letters on some mouldering urn, 
And ask if he who sleeps there can return. 
Go count the numbers that in silence lie, 
And learn by study what it is to die ; 
For sure your heart, if any heart you own. 
Conceits that man expires without a groan ; 
That he who lives receives from you a grace. 
Or death is nothing but a change of place : 
That peace is dull, that joy from sorrow springs. 
And war the most desirable of things. 
Else why these scenes that wound the feeling mind, 
This sport of death — this cockpit of mankind ! 
Why sobs the widow in perpetual pain ? 
Why cries the orphan, — " Oh ! my father s slain !" 
Why hangs the sire his paralytic head. 
And nods with manly grief — '* My son is dead \" 
Why drops the tear from off the sister's cheek. 
And sweetly tells the misery she would speak ? 
Or why, in sorrow sunk, does pensive John 
To all the neighbours tell, " Poor master's gone f 

Oh ! could I paint the passion that I feel. 
Or point a horror that would wound like steel, 



264 

To each unfeeling, unrelenting mind, 
I'd send destruction and relieve mankind. 
You that are husbands, fathers, brothers, all 
The tender names which kindred learn to call ; 
Yet like an image carved in massy stone, 
You bear the shape, but sentiment have none ; 
Allied by dust and figure, not ^Yith mind, 
You only herd, but live not with mankind. 

Since then no hopes to civilize remain, 
And mild philosophy has preach'd in vain. 
One prayer is left which dreads no proud reply, 
That he who made you breathe will make you die. 



LINES 
SENT TO SIR ROBERT SMITH, 

The morning after ashing Mr. Paine over night the quettion 

WHAT IS LOVE? 

Paris, 1800. 

'Tis that delightful transport we can feel. 
Which painters cannot paint, nor words reveal, 
Nor any art we know of, — can conceal. 
Canst thou describe the sun beams to the blind, 
Or make him feel a shadow with his mind ? 



265 

So neither can we by description show 
This first of all felicities below. 

When happy Love pours magic o'er the soul, 

And all our thoughts in sweet delirium roll ; 

When Contemplation spreads her rainbow wings, 

And every flutter some new rapture brings : 

How sweetly then our moments glide away, 

And dreams repeat the raptures of the day ; 

We live in ecstacy to all things kind. 

For Love can teach a moral to the mind. 

But are there not some other marks that prove, 

What is this wonder of the soul, call'd Love? 

O yes, there are, but of a different kind, 
The dreadful horrors of a dismal mind. 
Some jealous fury throws her poison'd dart 
And rends in pieces the distracted heart. 

When Love's a tyrant, and the soul a slave. 
No hopes remain to thought, but in the grave ; 
In that dark den, it sees an end to grief. 
And what was once its dread, becomes relief. 

What are the iron chains that hands have wrought ? 
The hardest chains to break, are those of thought. 
Think well of this, ye lovers, and be kind, 
Nor play with torture — or a tortured mind., 



266 
IMPROMPTU 

ON 

A LONG NOSED FRIEND.* 

Paris, 1800. 



Going along the other day, 

Upon a certain plan ; 
I met a nose upon the way, 

Behind it — was a man. 

I called unto the nose to stop, 
And when it had done so, — 

The man behind it — he came up. 
They made Zenobio. 



THE STRANGE STORY OF 

KORAH, DATHAN, AND ABIRAM, 

Numbers, Chap, xvi. accounted for. 



Old ballads sing of Chevy-chace, 
Beneath whose rueful shade, 

Full many a valiant man was slain, 
And many a widow made. 



Count Zenobio. 



267 

But I will tell of one much worse, 

That happ'd in days of yore, 
All in the barren wilderness. 

Beside the Jordan shore ; 

Where Moses led the people forth, 
Call'd chosen tribes of God ; 

And fed them forty years with quails, 
And ruled them with a rod. 

A dreadful fray once rose among 
These self-named tribes of I am ; 

Where Korah fell, and by his side 
Fell Dathan and Abiram. 

An earthquake swallow'd thousands up, 
And fire came down like stones ; 

Which slew their sons and daughters all. 
Their wives and little ones. 

'Twas air about old Aaron's tythes 
This murdering quarrel rose ; 

For tjthes are worldly things of old. 
That lead from words to blows. 

A Jew of Venice has explained. 
In the language of his nation. 

The manner how this fray began. 
Of which here is translation. 



268 

There was a widow old and poor, 
Who scarce herself could keep; 

Her stock of goods was very small, 
Her flock one single sheep. 

And when the time of sheafing came^ 
She counted much her gains ; 

For now, said she, I shall be blest, 
With plenty for my pains. 

When Aaron heard the sheep was shear'd. 

And gave a good increase. 
He straightway sent his ty thing-man. 

And took away the fleece. 

At this the weeping widow went 

To Korah to complain, 
And Korah he to Aaroil went 

In order to explain. 

But Aaron said, in such a case. 

There can be no forbearing, 
The law ordains that thou shalt give 

The first fleece of thy shearing. 

When lambing time was come about, 

This sheep became a dam ; 
And bless'd the widow's mournful heart. 

By bringing forth a lamb. 



269 

When Aaron heard the sheep had young, 

He staid till it was grown, 
And then he sent his tything man, 

And took it for his own. 

Again the weeping widow went 

To Korah with her grief. 
But Aaron said, in such a case. 

There could be no relief. 

For in the holy law 'tis writ, 

That whilst thou keep'st the stock, 

Thou shalt present unto the Lord 
The firstling of thy flock. 

The widow then in deep distress. 

And having nought to eat. 
Against her will she kilPd the sheep, 

To feed upon the meat. 

When Aaron heard the sheep was kilUd, 

He sent and took a limb ; 
Which by the holy law he said 

Pertained unto him. 

For in the holy law 'tis writ. 
That when thou kill'st a beast, 

Thou shalt a shoulder and a breast 
Present untp the priest. 



270 

The widow then worn out with grief, 
Sat down to mourn and weep, 

And in a fit of passion said, 
The devil take the sheep. 

Then Aaron took the whole away, 
And said the laws record. 

That all and each devoted thing 
Belongs unto the Lord. 

The widow went among her kin. 

The tribes of Israel rose ; 
And all the widows young and old, 

Pull'd Aaron by the nose. 

But Aaron call'd an earthquake up, 
And fire from out the sky ; 

And all the consolation is — 
The ***** tells a lie. 



( 



Mr. Paine, while in prison at Paris, as has been before 
mentioned, corresponded with a lady under the signature 
of " The Castle in the Air," while she addressed her 
letters from " The Little Corner of the World." For 
reasons which he knew not, their intercourse was suddenly 
suspended, and for some time he believed his fair friend to 
be in obscurity and distress. Many years afterwards how- 



271 



ever, he met her imexpectedly at Paris, in affluent cir- 
cumstances, and married to Sir Robert Smith. The 
following is a copy of one of these poetical effusions. 



From the CASTLE in the AIR to THE LITTLE 
CORNER OF THE WORLD. 



In the region of clouds, where the whirlwinds arise, 

My Castle of Fancy was built; 
The turrets reflected the blue of the skies. 

And the windows with sun-beams were gilt. 

The rainbow sometimes in its beautiful state, 

Enameird the mansion around ; 
And the figures that fancy in clouds can create, 

Supplied me with gardens and ground. 

I had grottoes, and fountains, and orange-tree groves, 

I had all that enchantment has told ; 
I had sweet shady walks, for the Gods and their Loves, 

I had mountains of coral and gold. 

But a storm that I felt not, had risen and rolFd, 

While wrapp'd in a slumber I lay ; 
And when I lookM out in the morning, behold 

My Castle was carried away. 



272 



It past over rivers, aiid vallies, and groves, 

The world it was all in my view ; 
I thought of my friends, of their fates, of their loves, 

And often, full often of you. 

At length it came over a beautiful scene, 
That Nature in silence had made ; 

The place was but small, but 'twas sweetly serene^ 
And chequer'd with sunshine, and shade. 

I gazed, and I envied with painful goodwill. 

And grew tired of my seat in the air ; 
When all of a sudden my Castle stood still. 

As if some attraction was there. 

Like a lark from the sky it came fluttering down, 

And placed me exactly in view. 
When who should I meet, in this charming retreat. 

This corner of calmness, but you. 

Delighted to find you in honour and ease, 

1 felt no more sorrow, nor pain ; 
But the wind coming fair, I ascended the breeze. 

And went back with my Castle again. 



273 



The People of the State of New-York, by the Grace 
of God, Free and Independent, to all to whom these 
presents shall come or may concern, 

SEND GREETING: 

Know ye, That the annexed is a true copy of the 
will of THOMAS PAINE, deceased, as recorded in the 
office of our surrogate, in and for the city and county of 
New- York, In testimony whereof, we have caused the 
seal of office of our said surrogate to be hereunto affixed, 
"Witness, Silvanus Miller, Esq. surrogate of said county, at 
the city of New- York, the twelfth day of July, in the w 
year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and nine, !5 
and of our Independence the thirty-fourth. ^ 

SILVANUS MILLER. 2 

H 



The last will and testament of me, the subscriber, 
Thomas Paine, reposing confidence in my Creator 
God, and in no other being, for I know of no other, nor 
believe in any other, — I Thomas Paine, of the state of 
New- York, author of the work entitled ' Common Sense,' 
written in Philadelphia, in 1775, and published in that 
city the beginning of January 1776, which awaked Ame- 
rica to a Declaration of Independence on the fourth of 
July following, which was as fast as the work could spread 
through such an extensive country ; author also of the 
several numbers of the American Crisis, " thirteen in all,'' 



274 



published occasionally during the progress of the revolu- 
tionary war — the last is on the peace ; author also of the 
'Rights of Man/ parts the first and second, written and 
published in London, in 1791 and 92 ; author also of a 
work on religion,* i\ge of Reason' part the first and second 
(" N. B. I have a third part by me in manuscript and an 
answer to the Bishop of Llandaff;") author also of a work 
lately pubHshed, entitled ' Examination of the Passages in 
the New Testament quoted from the Old, and calted 
Prophecies concerning Jesus Christ,' and shewing there 
are no prophecies of any such person ; author also of 
j2 several other works not here enumerated, " Dissertations on 
^ First Principles of Government" — " Decline and Fall of the 
^ English System of Finance'' — ** Agrarian Justice," &c. &c. 
make this my last will and testament, that is to say : I 



< 

§ give and bequeath to my executors herein after appointed, 

r j 

" Walter Morton and Thomas Addis Emmet, thirty 
shares I hold in the New-York Phoenix Insurance Com- 
pany which cost me 1470 dollars, they are worth now 
upwards of 1500 dollars, and all my moveable effects, and 
also the money that may be in my trunk or elsewhere at 
the time of my decease, paying thereout the expences of my 
funeral, in trjust as to the said "shares, moveables and 
money for Margaret Brazier Bon»ieviIle, wife of Nicholas 
Bonneville, of Paris, for her own sole and separate use, 
and at her own disposal, notwithstanding her coverture. 
As to my farm in New-Rochelle, I give, devise, and be- 
queath the same to my said executors Walter Morton 
and Thomas Addis Emmet, and to the survivor of then),. 



275 



iiis heirs and assigns for ever, in thust, nevertheless, to 
sell and dispose of the north side thereof, now in the 
occupation of Andrew A. Dean, beginning at the west end 
of the orchard and running in a Ihie with the land sold to 

Coles to the end of the farm, and to apply the 

money arising from such sale as hereinafter directed. I 
give to my friends Walter Morton, of the New-York 
Phoenix Insurance Company, and Thomas Addis Emmet, 
councellor at law, late of Ireland, two hundred dollars 
each, and one hundred dollars to Mrs. Palmer, widow 
of Elihu Palmer, late of New- York, to be paid out of the 
money arising from said sale, and I give the remainder of ^ 
the money arising from that sale, one half thereof to Clio ;^ 
Rickman,* of High or Upper Mary-la-Bonne street, ^ 

CO 

London, and the other half to Nicholas Bonneville, of ^ 
Paris, husband of Margaret B. Bonneville aforesaid : ^^ 
and as to the south part of the said farm, containing up- 
wards of one hundred acres, in trust to rent out the same 
or otherwise put it to profit, as shall be found most advisa- 
ble, and to pay the rents and profits thereof to the said 
Margaret B. Bonneville, in trust for her children, Benjamin 
Bonneville, and Thomas Bonneville, their education and 



* Not a sliver did I ever get, and how (be executors can jus- 
tify their conduct towards me, I know not. Walter Morton has 
deceived, and used me very scaodalously, about this legacy : this 
may not surprise, but that Thomas Addis Emmet, the expa- 
triated republican from Ireland, should not do me justice in this 
business, remains unexplained, hurts my feelings exceedingly, 
and has injured me deeply, 

T 2 



276 



maintenance, nnlil they come to the age of twenty-one 
years, in order that she may bring them well np, give 
them good and usefnl learning, and instruct them in their 
duty to God, and the practice of morality, the rent of the 
land or the interest of the money for Mhich it may be 
sold, as herein after mentioned, to be employed in their 
education. And after the youngest of the said children 
shall have arrived at the age of twenty-one years, in 
further trust to convey the same to the said children share 
and share alike in fee simple. But if it shall be thought 
advisable to my executors and executrix, or the survi- 
y vor or survivors of them, at any time before the young- 
^ est of the said children shall come of asre, to sell and 
dispose of the said south side of the said farm, in that 
^ case I hereby authorise and empower my said executors 
;:; to sell and dispose of the same, and I direct that the 
money arising from such sale be put into stock, either in 
the United States bank stock or New York Phoenix insu- 
rance company stock, the interest or dividends thereof to be 
applied as is already directed for the education and main- 
tenance of the said children ; and the principal to be trans- 
ferred to the said children or the survivor of them on his 
or their coming of age. I know not if the society of 
people called quakers admit a person to be buried in their 
burying ground, who does not belong to their society, but 
if they do or will adniit me, I woM prefer being buried 
there : my father belonged to that profession, and I was 
partly brought up in it. But if it is not consistent with 
their rules to do this, I desire to be buried on my own 



277 



farm at New-Rochelle. The place where I am to be buried 
to be a square of twelve feet, to be enclosed with rows of 
trees, and a stone or post and rail fence, with a head stone 
with my name and age engraved upon it, author of 
'Common Sense/ I nominate, constitute, and appoint 
AValter Morton, of the New York Phoenix Insurance Com- 
pany, and Thomas Addis Emmet, councellor at law, late 
of Ireland, and Margaret B. Bonneville, executors and 
executrix to this my last will and testament, requesting 
the said Walter Morton and Thomas Addis Emmet, that 
they will give what assistance they conveniently can to 
Mrs. Bonneville, and see that the children be well brought ^ 
up. Thus placing confidence in their friendship, I here- •-" 
with take my final leave of them and of the world. I have ^ 
lived an honest and useful life to mankind ; my time has J 
been spent in doing good; and I die in perfect composure 2 
and resignation to the will of my Creator God. Dated ^ 
this eighteenth day of January, in the year one thousand 
eight hundred and nine, and I have also signed my name 
to the other sheet of this will in testimony of its being a 

part thereof. 

THOMAS PAINE, [l. s.] 

Signed, sealed, published and declared by the testator, 
in our presence, who at his request, and in the presence of 
each other, have set our names as witnesses thereto, the 
words "published and declared" first interlined. 

Wm. KEESE, 
JAMES ANGEVINE, 
CORNELIUS RYDER. 



Printed by Thomas Clio Rickman, 7, Upper Mary-le-bone Street;, 
Forllaad Place, London. 



LIST 

OF 

MR. PAINE'S WORKS. 



Trial of Dog Porter, about 1770, printed at Lewes. 
Case of Excismen, 1772. printed at Lewes, octavo. 
Introduction to the Pennsylvanian Magazine, January 24, 

1775, do. 
To the publisher of do. on the utility of Magazines, no 

place no date, do. 
Philadelphia, 1775, (supposed) do. 

Useful and entertaining Hints on the internal Riches of the 
Colonies, Pennsylvanian Magazine, Philadelphia, 
1775, do. 
Reflections on the Death of Lord Clive, Pennsylvanian 

Magazine, (not seen,) do. 
New Anecdote of i\Iexander the Great, Pennsylvanian 

Magazine, 1775, do. 
Common Sense, Philadelphia, January 1776, do. 
The Crisis, 16 numbers, from Dec. 23, 1776, to Dec. y, 

1783, do. 
Letter to Abbe Raynall, Philadelphia, 17S2, do. 
Public Good, being an Examination of the Claim of Vir- 
ginia to the Vacant Western Territory, &c. Philadel- 
phia, 1784, do. 
Dissertation on Government, the Affairs of Bank and 
Paper-Money, Philadelphia, 1786, do. 



List of Mr, Faint's Works, 

Prospects on the Rubicon, London, 1787, do. 

Letter to the Author of the Republican, Paris, 179L 

Rights of Man, part 1st, London, 1791. do. 

Letter to Abbe Sieyes, 1791, do. 

Rights of Man, part 2d London, 1792. 

Letter to Henry Dundas, London, June 6, 1792, do. 

Letter to Lord Onslow, London, June 17, 1792, do. 

Letter to Onslow Cranley, commonly called Lord Onslow, 
London, June 21, 1792. 

Letter to the Sheriff of Sussex. 

Letter to the Addressers, London, July, 1792, ditto. 

Letter to Secretary Dundas, on his Detention at Dover, 
Calais, Sept. 15, 1792, ditto. 

Letter to the People of France, (on his Election to the 
Convention) Paris, Sept. 25, 1792, ditto. 

Letter to the Attorney General of England, on the Pro- 
secution against him, Paris, Nov. 11, 1792, ditto. 

Reasons for preserving the Life of Louis XVI, Paris, 
January, 1793. 

Age of Reason, part 1, Paris 1794, ditto. 

Dissertation on first Principles of Government, Paris, 
1794, do. 

Speech delivered in the Convention against the Constitu- 
tion of 1795, do. 

Agrarian Justice, Paris 1796, ditto. 

IDecline and Fall of the English System of Finance, Paris 
1796, ditto. 

Letter to George Washington, Paris, 1796, ditto. 

A%Q of Reason, part 2, Paris 179^; ditto. 



List of Mr. Fame's Works, 

Letter to the Hon. Thomas Erskine on the Prosecution of 

Williams, Paris 1797, ditto. 
Letter to the People and Armies of France, on the events 

of the 18th Fructidor, Paris 1797, ditto. 
Letters to the Citizens of the United States, Washington, 

1802, and London ditto. 

Examinations of the Prophecies, Essay on Dreams, &c. 

New York, 1807, making 3rd part of the Age of 

Reason, ditto. 
He wrote in addition, from 1805 to 1808 Essays for the 

American Newspapers. 
On the Invasion of England, New York, 1804. 
Essay on the Yellow Fever, London, 1807, &c. &c. &c. 

London, 1819. 
In 1818, Mr. Carlile published the whole of Mr. 
Paine's Works, Theological and Political, in Three regu- 
lar Volumes, octavo, and which are now publicly sold. 



BOOKS, 

JUST PUBLISHED, 

AND "WEITTEN 

By THOMAS CLIO RICKMAN. 



1. Poetical Scraps, in 2 vols, with elegant Vignettes^ 
15s. in boards, and at higher Prices in elegant Bindings. 

2. The Fallen Cottage, a Poem in quarto, with an 
elegant engraved Title Page. Price 2s. 6d. 

3. The Evening Walk, a Sentimental Tale, interspersed 
with poetic Scraps. Written at Seventeen Years of Age. 
Price 3s. 6d. 

4. A select Collection of Epigrams, many of them 
original. Price 2s. in Boards, or 4s. in elegant fancy 
Bindings. 

5. Mr. Pitt's Democracy Manifested. Price Is. Od. 

6. Hints on Hats. Price 6d. 

7. Man's Rights, a Song, the Music by Kenrick. 
Price Is. 

8. An Ode on the Emancipation of the Blacks of 
St. Domingo. Price Is. 6d. fine copies — Is. common. 
Inscribed to Earl Stanhope, and prefaced by Capel 
Lofft, Esq. 



NEAV^ BOOKS. 

9. Corruption, a Satire, with a full length Portr^t of 
the Author. Price 3s. 

10. The Atrocities of a Convent, in 3 vols. Price 13s. 

11. Elegy to the Memory of Thomas Paine. Price Is. 

jBj/ whom are also just Published, 

12. A familiar Epistle to the Right Honourable William 
Pitt, on his Apostacy, Sec. 8vc. Price Is. 

13. Memoirs of the Year Two Thousand Five Hun- 
dred. Price 4s. 6d. and 5s. 

14. Emigration to America. Price Is. 6d. 

15. Letters from Thomas Paine to the Citizens of 
America, after an Absence of fifteen Years in Europe. 
To which are subjoined some Letters between Him and 
the late General Washington, Mr. Samuel Adams, and 
the present President of the United States : also some 
Original Poetry of Mr. Paine's, and a Fac Simile of his 
Hand Writing in 1803. Price Ss. 6d. 

16. An Address to the Society of Friends commonly 
called Quakers, on excommunicating such of their Members 
as marry those of other religious Professions. Price Is. 6d. 

17. Rights of Discussion, or a vindication of Dissen- 
ters of every Denomination. Price 2s. 6d. 

18. Sydney, a Monody, occasioned by the Loss of the 
Viceroy Packet. Price Is. 6d. 



NEW BOOKS. 

19. Welcome to School, a Song with Music. Price 
Is. 6d. 

20. Naval Triumphs, a Song with Music. Price 
Is. 6d. 

21. The Nightingale, ditto. Price Is. 

22. To Arms ! to Arms ! ditto, price Is. Set also to 
a Military Band, by Davy. 

23. A correct Portrait of George Fox, the Founder 
of the Sect of the People called Quakers, This Portrait 
is engraved from the original Painting of him, by Hon- 
thurst (in the year 1654, and in the 30th year of Fox's 
Age), now in the Possession of the Publisher. Prints 
7s. 6d.— Proofs 15s. 

24. An exact and high finished Portrait of Thomas 
Clio Rickman, from a full-size painting by Hazlitt, size 
10 Inches by 8. The Price 10s. 6d, Proofs 15s. 

25. Also, a whole Length, by Dighton, Price 5s. and 

7s. 6d. 

26. An incomparable fine Portrait of Thomas Paine. 
Painted by Romney. Engraved by Sharp. Large Proofs 
<£1. Is. Prints 10s. 6d, Small Proofs 3s. (id. Prints 
2s. 6d. 



By the King's Royal Letters Patent, 

THE 

PATENT SIGNAL TRUMPET, 

FOR 

INCREASING THE POWER OF SOUND. 



Sold only by the Patentee, Thomas Clio Rickman, 
Bookseller, and Stationer, Upper Mary-le-Bone 
Street. 

Where all Periodical Publications are regularly served, 
and Newspapers franked to any part of England. 
Copper-Plates elegantly engraved. Music, Prints, 
&c. Printing in all its branches. Book-binding 
done in every way. Seal Engraving executed in 
the most accurate and superior manner. 



AN EXTENSIVE CIRCULATING LIBRARY. 











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